Climb Golden Cap from Seatown on the coast path

Stand on the golden greensand at the highest point within a mile of the south coast

Look along the Jurassic Coast in both directions from the summit

Walk round West Bay harbour and find out why it has been moved twice

Golden Cap, at 191 metres, is the highest point within a mile of the south coast of Great Britain, named for the outcrop of golden greensand at the very top of the cliff and visible for tens of miles along the Jurassic Coast. The National Trust owns it, and the path up from Seatown takes about forty minutes. East along the coast, West Bay was once Bridport Harbour, built to ship out Bridport's rope and nets; it has been silted up and battered by storms so often that it has been moved twice.

Golden Cap and West Bay: The Top of the South Coast

Lyme Regis, Abbotsbury and Hardy's Dorset

Poole

Six nights in a loop from Poole along the Jurassic Coast: Corfe Castle and the arch at Durdle Door in Purbeck, then fossil hunting at Lyme Regis and the swannery at Abbotsbury.

The Jurassic Coast from Poole

Lyme Regis and West Dorset

A week along the Jurassic Coast from Lyme Regis to Purbeck: fossil hunting where Mary Anning worked, Golden Cap and the Abbotsbury swans, Durdle Door and Corfe Castle, and Old Harry Rocks at the eastern end.

The Jurassic Coast: Lyme Regis to Old Harry Rocks

Fossil-hunt at Monmouth Beach and Church Cliff with a guide, on the Lias shore where Mary Anning found the first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton as a girl

Visit the Lyme Regis Museum on Bridge Street, on the site of the Anning family's home

Visit Dinosaurland Fossil Museum on Coombe Street

Walk out along the Cobb, the harbour wall that appears in The French Lieutenant's Woman

Join a fossil walk from the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre along the beach

As a girl Mary Anning found the first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton on the Lias shore at Lyme Regis in 1811–12, after her brother Joseph had found its skull, and fossil hunters still work Monmouth Beach and Church Cliff. The Lyme Regis Museum stands on the site of the Anning family's home, Dinosaurland is in Coombe Street, and the Cobb, the harbour wall, is the one in The French Lieutenant's Woman. East along the beach, the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre runs fossil walks.

Lyme Regis: Mary Anning's Fossil Coast

Walk through the swannery among the nesting mute swans

Be there for a feeding session at noon or four, when the swans gather round

Climb the hill to St Catherine's Chapel, the 14th-century pilgrimage chapel

On the Fleet, the lagoon behind Chesil Beach, Abbotsbury keeps the only managed swannery in the world: a colony of mute swans that can number more than 600 birds and around 150 pairs. Written records go back to 1393, but it is thought the Benedictine monks of the abbey founded here in the 11th century set it up, to keep swans for their banquets. The birds are used to people and let visitors come close even when there are cygnets on the nest, and they are fed at noon and at four. On the hill between the village and the sea stands St Catherine's Chapel, a 14th-century pilgrimage chapel, and the village also has subtropical gardens.

Abbotsbury: The Only Managed Swannery in the World

Look up at the Giant from the viewpoint below the hill

Walk up to the Trendle, the earthwork on the hill above the figure

Walk the village and the remains of Cerne Abbey

Find St Augustine's Well behind the abbey

The Cerne Abbas Giant is cut into the hillside above the village in trenches about two feet deep packed with crushed chalk: a naked man 55m long and 51m across, club in his right hand. He belongs to the National Trust, is a scheduled monument, and his age has long been argued over — prehistoric, Roman, or a 17th-century satire on Oliver Cromwell — though soil dating in 2021 points to the late Saxon period, between 700 and 1100 AD.

The Cerne Abbas Giant: 55 Metres of Chalk Man

Visit Thomas Hardy's Cottage at Higher Bockhampton, the thatched house where he was born in 1840

Visit Max Gate in Dorchester, the house Hardy designed for himself and lived in until his death in 1928

See the Hardy collection at the Dorset Museum & Art Gallery in Dorchester

Tour Clouds Hill, the small cottage near Bovington that T. E. Lawrence bought in 1925 and moved into in 1935, weeks before his death

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in the thatched cottage at Higher Bockhampton, and he designed Max Gate in Dorchester for himself and lived there until he died in 1928; the Dorset Museum & Art Gallery keeps his collection. Near Bovington, T. E. Lawrence rented the small cottage of Clouds Hill from 1923, bought it in 1925 as a retreat, and moved in on leaving the RAF in 1935, weeks before his death.

Hardy's Dorset: Higher Bockhampton, Max Gate and Clouds Hill

Walk the Quantock ridge from Crowcombe towards Wills Neck

Visit the Museum of Somerset in Taunton Castle

Walk the Tone riverside past the County Ground in Taunton

The Quantock Hills were England's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, designated in 1956 and now called a National Landscape, a ridge of heath and oak combes above the Somerset Levels, important for red deer and crossed by paths including the Coleridge Way. Taunton below holds the Somerset County Cricket Ground, the castle where Judge Jeffreys held the Bloody Assizes after Monmouth's rebellion, and the Museum of Somerset inside it.

Taunton and the Quantocks: The First AONB in England

Walk from Lulworth Cove over the cliff path to Durdle Door, the natural limestone arch, on the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site that runs 95 miles from Exmouth to Studland

Look at the Fossil Forest ledge east of Lulworth Cove, fossilised tree stumps about 144 million years old

Visit the Etches Collection at Kimmeridge, the museum of Jurassic marine fossils, and walk the ledges of Kimmeridge Bay

Walk into Tyneham, the village abandoned to the army in 1943, when the Lulworth ranges are open

The Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site runs 95 miles from Exmouth to Studland, and its best-known stretch is here: the cliff path from Lulworth Cove to Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch, and the Fossil Forest ledge east of the cove, with fossilised tree stumps about 144 million years old. At Kimmeridge the Etches Collection shows Jurassic marine fossils found on the ledges of the bay. Between the two lies Tyneham, a village abandoned when the army took it and the land around for firing ranges just before Christmas 1943.

Lulworth, Durdle Door and Kimmeridge

Walk out along the cliff top to Handfast Point and look down on Old Harry

Work out how the chalk once reached the Isle of Wight

Walk Knoll Beach and the dunes of Studland Bay

At Handfast Point on the Isle of Purbeck, three chalk formations, among them a stack and a stump, mark the eastern end of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. The chalk used to run in one ridge across to the Isle of Wight; the sea broke through, arches formed and collapsed, and one of the stacks left behind is Old Harry; another, Old Harry's Wife, was worn through at the base until its top fell away, leaving a stump. North of the point, Studland Bay curves for two and a half miles of sandy beaches — South, Middle and Knoll Beach, and Shell Bay — backed by dunes and heathland, with a stretch set aside as a naturist beach.