King's College Chapel

The first time you step inside King's College Chapel, you stop talking. The fan vaulting stretches above you in cream stone - soaring, intricate, almost unbearably beautiful - and suddenly you understand why people queue for hours just to stand where you're standing.

This is Cambridge's show-off building, completed in 1515 after a century of work. Henry VIII watched bits of it go up. The stained glass windows are mostly Victorian replacements (the originals took a battering in the Civil War) but the stone itself is the real thing. The scale is what gets you - 88 feet to the ceiling, a single nave that feels less like a building and more like a prayer made solid.

It's worth the visit if you care about architecture or church interiors at all. Art students and photographers camp here for hours. Families with restless kids might find it less gripping - it's not interactive, and you're largely just looking up and around. But teenagers who've made it through two Renaissance art modules? They'll get it.

From the caravan sites nearby - Cherry Hinton is closest at 2.7 miles, or grab a pitch at Highfield Farm further out - it's a straightforward walk or short cycle into the college. Admission costs a few quid, usually. Go early morning if you can. The light through those windows before the coach parties arrive is genuinely something else. Allow an hour minimum if you're actually looking; thirty minutes if you're just ticking it off.