Weekend breaks in Yorkshire and the North East

A castle town with a famous garden, a giant bookshop and the sea nearby

England's northernmost town, with Elizabethan walls and three famous bridges

A cathedral and castle on a wooded river bend

A cobbled Dales village with waterfalls on the River Wharfe

A genteel spa town of gardens, tea rooms and Turkish baths

The home of Wensleydale cheese, in the heart of the Dales

The Brontë village, with a steep cobbled street and a steam railway

A Pennine valley town of canals, woods and independent shops

A pretty market town and the gateway to the North York Moors

An abbey town in the Tyne Valley, the best base for Hadrian's Wall

Yorkshire's food town, beside Castle Howard

A friendly quayside city of bridges and big nights out

Heather moorland, steam trains and a dramatic coast

Castles, empty beaches, dark skies and Hadrian's Wall

A small Nidderdale town with a famously old sweet shop and a steep main street

A village around a big green, the capital of Swaledale

A Georgian market town beneath a Norman castle, at the door of Swaledale

A tiny cathedral city next door to Fountains Abbey

A smugglers' village tumbling down a steep cliff

A Victorian seaside town with a pier and a water-powered cliff tramway

Britain's oldest seaside resort, with two bays and a castle

A busy market town and gateway to the Yorkshire Dales

A cliff-hugging fishing village with a tiny harbour

James Herriot's Darrowby, with a market square and views from Sutton Bank

A priory on a headland above long sandy beaches, a short Metro ride from Newcastle

A dramatic harbour town with a clifftop abbey

Medieval walls, a magnificent minster and cobbled streets

Green valleys, limestone scars and drystone walls

A compact, walkable plan that covers York's big sights without rushing, and works well in any weather.

Abbey steps, fish and chips and a clifftop walk, planned around Whitby's narrow streets and limited parking.

A Norman cathedral on a rock, a river loop and some of the best countryside in the North East.

A lively city of bridges and nightlife, with the coast and a Roman wall on the doorstep.

A limestone cliff, a waterfall and a cheese factory, with a classic Dales pub in between.

A heritage railway, a huge hollow and a ruined abbey, in a landscape of heather and valleys.

Castles, a kipper village and puffins, on a coast of huge empty beaches.

A circular walk from Malham village takes in Malham Cove, an 80-metre limestone cliff with a clints-and-grikes pavement on top, and Gordale Scar, a dramatic gorge with a waterfall.

Hadrian's Wall Path is an 84-mile National Trail across northern England, but you can enjoy short sections in a weekend.

A coastal path section of the Cleveland Way links Whitby with Robin Hood's Bay, a distance of about seven miles.

The Farne Islands, off the Northumberland coast, are home to tens of thousands of seabirds, including puffins that nest between roughly April and July.

York's medieval walls are among the best-preserved in England.

York Minster is one of the largest medieval Gothic cathedrals in northern Europe.

The ruins of Whitby Abbey sit on the headland above the harbour, a Gothic skeleton against the sky.

Durham Cathedral is a masterpiece of Norman architecture beside the castle on a loop of the River Wear, together a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The North Yorkshire Moors Railway runs steam and heritage trains for about 24 miles through the national park between Pickering and Whitby.

The Settle to Carlisle line is one of England's most scenic railway journeys, crossing the Yorkshire Dales and the Eden Valley over 73 miles.

York has a long tradition of tea rooms, and an afternoon tea is a favourite part of a weekend there.

Whitby is among the best-known places in Britain for fish and chips.

The Turkish Baths in Harrogate are a restored Victorian bathing suite with an ornate Moorish-style interior, dating from the late 1800s.

York has a reputation as one of Europe's most haunted cities, and evening ghost walks are a tradition.

The Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge links Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough in a single walk of about 24 miles, with roughly 1,600 metres of climbing.

Ingleborough, at 723 metres, is one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks, a distinctive flat-topped mountain with a Iron Age hillfort on its summit.