Charlotte Brontë travel tips

‘Go to the Aran Islands. Live there as if you were one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression,” was, according to the poet WB Yeats, how he persuaded the playwright John Millington Synge to discover his muse – the desolate beauty of the Aran archipelago. Whatever was the true genesis for Synge’s Atlantic coast hiatus, his times on Inishmaan culminated in the critically acclaimed Playboy of the Western World (1907).

Start Housesteads Fort Finish Brocolita Roman TempleDistance 4¼ miles (use regular AD122 bus to shorten, if needed)Those who walk the whole 84 miles of Hadrian’s Wall in a week may refer to it as a type of pilgrimage. But in the last few years the ever innovative British Pilgrimage Trust has worked with English Heritage to devise historical pilgrim trails – incorporating ancient sites across Britain – including the 23-mile section between Housesteads and Corbridge. For a pilgrimage with Roman flavour, begin at the Roman fort of Housesteads – a place where it is said “hooded gods” were worshipped, and walk east taking in the milecastles, turrets and the temple remains dedicated to Mithras, the Roman god of light (use the Hadrian’s Wall bus to return to the start).

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It would be impossible to mention Manchester and not talk about football. The city’s two teams have a long history of rivalry and boast fans all over the world. The home of Manchester United, Old Trafford, and the home of Manchester City, Etihad Stadium, offer tours and should be on any fan’s to-do list. For neophytes and anyone with an interest in the game, the National Football Museum is a must visit attraction in the centre of the city, next to Manchester Cathedral. The museum is not just about the Mancunian teams – it exhibits artefacts, photographs and stories about the culture surrounding the game.

Some rules are meant to be broken. In 1932 several hundred ramblers and Young Communist League members trespassed onto the moors of Kinder Scout to protest the fact that walkers in England and Wales were being denied access to areas of open countryside. They were confronted by gamekeepers employed by wealthy private landowner, the Duke of Devonshire. Five of the trespassers were imprisoned.