Salisbury, GB

A long-standing modern Indian restaurant on Fisherton Street that plates contemporary, lighter cooking rather than the usual curry-house standards. It is the city's go-to for a proper Indian dinner and has kept its reputation for years.

A relaxed Middle Eastern kitchen built around sharing: meze, mixed grills, tagines and warm flatbreads meant for the middle of the table. It is an easy, generous spot for a group who want to graze rather than order a plate each.

A daytime cafe inside a restored Victorian grain mill that doubles as an art gallery and craft studios, so you eat surrounded by work for sale. The seasonal menu of homemade dishes earns it a place in the Good Food Guide as a local gem.

Reputedly one of England's oldest pubs, dating to around 1320, a warren of timber-framed rooms beside the Poultry Cross with a tiny upstairs dining room. It is as much a piece of the city's history as a place to eat, gnarled beams, pewter bar and all.

A modern British restaurant above the market square doing a more grown-up sit-down meal than the city's pubs, with menus built on local meat and fish. It is the reliable choice for a proper dinner when you want tablecloths rather than beer mats.

A small, lively Mexican kitchen doing tacos, tostadas and proper margaritas a cut above the usual high-street Tex-Mex. It is locally owned, central and a fun, casual change of pace from cathedral-city pub food.

An independent bakery and cafe on the market square turning out handmade breads, pastries and cakes from local ingredients. It is the morning stop for good coffee and a pastry before the market and cathedral.

The flat riverside Town Path crosses the water meadows south of the cathedral, framing the spire exactly as Constable painted it. It is a short, level walk straight from the centre and the single best view of the cathedral there is.

A riverside park where several of the chalk streams that meet at Salisbury braid together, with flat paths, big lawns and bridges over clear water. It is the easy, family-friendly green space closest to the centre.

An Iron Age hillfort on the downs northeast of the city, a grassy ring of banks and ditches with wide views over the Avon valley. The short climb up rewards you with open chalk grassland and skylarks in summer.

A long band of ancient woodland west of the city, threaded by a dead-straight Roman road that makes a satisfying out-and-back through beech avenues. It is quieter and wilder than the riverside walks, with a real sense of old forest.

The city's museum sits in a medieval house on the close, and its Wessex Gallery covers the deep prehistory of Stonehenge and the surrounding landscape with genuinely important finds. It is the context that makes a Stonehenge visit make sense.

The city's main producing theatre, staging its own drama plus touring plays, dance and a big annual Christmas show. It punches above a city this size and is the reliable evening option when you want a proper night at the theatre.

A converted medieval church now hosting live music, comedy, film and gigs across genres the bigger venues skip. The deconsecrated nave makes an atmospheric, slightly offbeat room for a show.

The former home of Prime Minister Edward Heath on the cathedral close, opened as it was left, with his art, sailing trophies and a garden running down to the river. It is an unusually personal house visit, less stately home than a glimpse of a life.

A regimental military museum in a 13th-century house on the close, telling the story of the Berkshire and Wiltshire regiments across three centuries. The riverside garden behind it is a quiet spot most close visitors walk straight past.

Britain's tallest spire rises over an early-English Gothic cathedral built in one go in the 13th century, which gives it a rare unity of style. Its Chapter House holds the best-preserved of the four surviving 1215 Magna Carta originals.

The most famous prehistoric monument in Europe stands on Salisbury Plain a short drive north of the city, its sarsen circle older than the pyramids. It is busier and more managed than you might expect, but standing before the stones still lands.

The vast earthwork ramparts of the original Salisbury, an Iron Age hillfort the Normans reused for a castle and first cathedral before the city moved down to the valley. From the ramparts you can trace the outline of the lost cathedral and see the modern spire beyond.

A Queen Anne townhouse on the cathedral close with fine plasterwork, a collection of 18th-century drinking glasses and a walled garden that few visitors find. Its calm interiors stood in for period drama, and it is a quiet contrast to the cathedral crowds.

The last of Salisbury's medieval market crosses, a hexagonal stone shelter in the heart of the old market grid where poultry was once sold. It anchors the network of narrow medieval streets named for the trades that filled them.

The largest cathedral close in Britain, a walled green ringed by centuries of grand houses with the spire rising from the middle. It is a place to wander slowly rather than tick off, and a handful of the houses are museums in their own right.