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• Discover Britain and Ireland
  • When To Go
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• Beyond Tourism Britain and Ireland
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BEST PLACE FOR A PINT:

In Penzance, Admiral Benbow adorns its walls with shipwreck relics. Students prowl “The Turf” in Oxford. Tradition mandates a pub crawl in Edinburgh. If the blonde in the black skirt is your drink of choice, the pubs of Dublin’s Grafton St. serve up copious pints of Guinness. Unruly trad sessions liven The Crane in Galway.

BEST QUIRKY MUSEUMS:

A collection of antiquities and architectural marvels, Sir John Soane’s Museum is worth a look. In Boscastle, the Museum of Witchcraft confirms the hocus pocus with biographies of living witches. The Dog Collar Museum in Leeds Castle displays medieval pooch attire. Near Shrewsbury, The Land of Lost Content salvages souvenirs of popular culture from trash cans.

BEST PLACE TO CATCH A WAVE:

Hang ten at Newquay on the dazzling Cornwall coast, or brave the 20 ft. rollers at Lewis. Unspoiled sands stretch near Aberdaron and on the colorful Isle of Wight. The stunning seascapes in St. Ives have long inspired artists.

BEST INDULGENCES:

It is easy to overload on clotted cream and cucumber sandwiches as you sip high tea in London. Sate chocolate cravings and Willy Wonka fantasies at Cadbury World, in Birmingham. Eager volunteers can sample the best of Old Jameson Distillery’s liquid gold or a pint straight from the source at the Guinness Storehouse.

BEST WAY TO TEMPT FATE:

Tourists bend over backwards to kiss a stone at Blarney Castle. Legend holds that nappers on Snowdonia’s Cader Idris will awake either poets or madmen. In Snowdonia, mountaineers celebrate the summit of Tryfan by jumping between its two peaks.

BEST SUNSETS:

The walled Welsh city of Caernarfon sits on the water, facing the western horizon full on. In Ireland, Yeats still can’t get enough of the views from Drumcliff toward Benbulben. The extreme northern location of Shetland makes for breathtaking skies, while Arthur’s Seat grants 360° views of the shimmering Edinburgh skyline.

BEST LIVESTOCK:

Don’t pet Northumberland’s psychotic Wild Cattle, inbred for seven centuries. The Highlands have the harrowing Bealach-na-ba (“Cattle”) Pass, featuring plunging cliffs, hairpin turns, and daredevil cows. Famous seaweed-eating sheep sustain themselves on North Ronaldsay’s beaches. The fine goats on Ireland’s Cape Clear Island produce fine goat’s-milk ice cream.

BEST NIGHTLIFE:

The Beatles’ hometown, Liverpool, comes together every night. Brighton does native son Fatboy Slim proud. Students command most of Newcastle, while funkier folks try Oldham St. in Manchester or Broad St. in Birmingham. Oh, and London is rumored to have the odd club, here and there.

BEST OF THE MACABRE:

The morbid can sample the gallows at Nottingham’s Galleries of Justice. The plague struck down most of the residents of Eyam, where visitors can examine 17th-century Plague Cottages and purchase plastic rats. Some 250,000 bodies supposedly slumber around Edinburgh’s Greyfriars Tolbooth and Highland Kirk, while corpses are put to more interesting use at Moyses’ Hall Museum in Bury St. Edmunds. Don’t miss the reenactments of torture and killing at the London Dungeon, and a walk through the somber ruins of Kilmainham Gaol will leave you chilled to the bone.