Lavenham is the best known of the Suffolk wool towns and, at the time of Henry VIII, was the 14th wealthiest town in England. It has one of the finest collections of late medieval architecture in the country.

The shingle bank at Cley keeps the sea out of the freshwater marshes - for most of the time anyway - but with rising sea levels and increased wave height, tidal incursions will happen more often.

Snow followed by a hard frost make for a serene start to a clear winter's day. But come the summer, Hickling Broad at a northern extremity of the Norfolk Broads navigation, will be busy with holiday craft.

These are not your oak panelled, brass handled jobs for which some undertakers charge an arm and a leg. These are baskets of Somerset willow, bolstered by Norfolk hazel - airy, comfortable and quick to release your carbon back to Mother Earth.

Albion is one of only two trading wherries, the old trading craft of the Norfolk Broads, still sailing although three examples each of the later deriviatives, the wherry yachts and leisure wherries, survive, including the leisure wherry Ardea.

Aldeburgh, a small coastal resort, was the home of composer Benjamin Britten from 1947 until his death in 1976. He co-founded the Aldeburgh Festival with the tenor Peter Pears and Imogene Holst, daughter of Gustav Holst.

Reed, cut on the rond, the narrow strip between the flood bank and the river's edge, awaits onward transport. The area of rivers and shallow lakes known as the Norfolk Broads has long been the main source of the famous Norfolk Reed.

An early morning sail before the cruisers have woken is the way to get a Broadland river to oneself in high summer. Stracey Arms Mill, now owned by the Norfolk Windmills Trust, is open to the public from Easter to late September.

Pargeting - ornamental plasterwork - became fashionable on big houses in the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in London and among the land barons of Essex and Suffolk.

At dawn, the unending flow of lorries continues over the only crossing of the River Orwell downstream from Ipswich. The bridge, opened in 1982, carries the A14 trunk road that connects Felixtowe, with the national network.

There was once a medieval city here, a major port stretching nearly half a mile east of the modern day beach line. But, from the 13th century, the sea slowly took most of it away. Dunwich is now a small village.

Norwich Castle, now overlooking the city centre, was built by the Normans 900 years ago, replacing an earlier timber model with which they kept control locally until they had consolidated their grip after the Conquest.

Stands of poplars provide a vertical dimension to the otherwise uniform flatness of the Fens, particularly in the area south of the River Little Ouse, east of Littleport.

The hamlet of Shingle Street is built on a shingle beach thrown up where the River Ore issues obliquely into the sea. In turn bleak and peaceful, it imparts a sense of impermanence during winter storms.