Some of Britain's finest monuments, masterpieces of medieval architecture, rise unexpectedly from the Fens of East Anglia, soaring above the marshy flatlands. Further on, centuries-old trading ports rub shoulders with self-consciously Victorian seaside resorts along the North Sea coast.
In medieval times the region was one of the most heavily populated parts of England, but was ravaged in the mid-14th century by the Black Death. The population has remained sparse ever since.
February in Britain means late winter, not the best time to head for the beach. Still, lured by the offer of a holiday apartment on the Norfolk coast, we head north from the university city of Cambridge, venturing into a deceptively uneventful landscape. Even the royals often retreat to Sandringham, the Queen's private estate in Norfolk, bought by Queen Victoria in 1862 for the future Edward VII.
The Fens were once a misty marshland scattered with islands of solid ground, where small communities made a living from fish and wildfowl. From the Middle Ages onward, large areas were reclaimed and major drainage projects were undertaken in the 18th century.
By a quirk of history, Ely, to all intents a sleepy market town, became a city distinguished by its cathedral. Streets and lanes bear names such as Butter Market, The Maltings, Fish Lane, Ship Lane or Church Lane.
The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Ely - also dubbed the Ship of the Fens - rises from the windswept fields, towering above the rows of bowed poplars and elms.
In the morning sun the cathedral is best admired from the car park in the town centre, framed at this time of year in a white gauze of hawthorn blossom. The cathedral is then reached by a footpath leading through Three Cups Passage into the High Street.
Around the base of the cathedral stands a fine array of medieval buildings including the Almonry and the Precentor's House; names evoking a way of life now disappeared.
The high point of Ely Cathedral, spiritually as well as architecturally, is the Octagon Lantern, conceived in 1322 after the collapse of a central Norman tower. Either side of it, the North and South Transepts from around 1090 still stand, their 15th-century roofs adorned with angels. The 76-metre Norman nave was enhanced in Victorian times by the addition of an elaborately painted ceiling.
The Saxon monastery here was founded in 673 by St Etheldreda, a princess who retreated there after two marriages. Destroyed by Danish invaders, the site was re-established by Benedictine monks in 970 and became a cathedral after the Norman Conquest. At present the 14th-century Choir is roped off, together with a brilliantly lit Lady Chapel also undergoing restoration. Beyond the Choir lies a 13th-century presbytery housing the founder's shrine.
On the border of the counties of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire the Ship Hotel stands beside the Little Ouse river, a crossroads of land and water routes across the Fens. The waterway is lined with brightly painted barges, evidence of that very civilised British predilection for messing about in boats.
For centuries a few great families controlled the Hanseatic port of King's Lynn, where the Great Ouse river reaches the West Norfolk coast. From Nelson Street and the cobbled lanes that run off it, merchants' houses stretch back to the river, their Georgian facades masking the medieval structures within.
The imposing church of St Margaret dates in part from the 12th century, its churchyard now nurturing spring's first purple and white crocuses, the daffodils ready to burst forth.
The striking Tudor town hall in King's Lynn wears the prominent inscription "Elizabeth Regina 1624" but is two centuries older still. Across a street called Saturday Market, the youth hostel occupies Thoresby College, a former seminary , founded in 1508. One of the town's most significant landmarks, soon to be restored, the 28-metre Greyfriars Tower was part of a building founded in 1230 by the Franciscan Friars.
The perfectly proportioned Custom House on Purfleet Quay was designed by local artist Henry Bell. The white-domed building opened in 1695 as a mercantile exchange, later becoming a customs house, eventually to be acclaimed by one eminent architect as "one of the most perfect buildings ever erected".
On the quay stands a statue of a local boy made good, the navigator George Vancouver, immortalised by the city that now commands the North American waterways he explored in the 18th century.
Cromer is one of several venerable seaside resorts on the North Norfolk coast, its Victorian legacy including manicured public gardens along an esplanade above the sea cliffs, four-storey boarding houses and even a brownstone Hotel de Paris. Empty bathing boxes and shuttered ice-cream stalls suggest a bustle completely lacking in late winter. A clapboard theatre squats on the deserted pier above the white-capped, turgid waters of the North Sea.
The piercing late-winter winds blow from onshore, as demonstrated on-screen by cheerful crop-headed hosts on the BBC's evening Look East program. Their weather charts are covered in arrows moving up from the south-west.
The imposing church with its facade of flint pebbles was rebuilt in Victorian times but its origins hark back to the 15th century. Images of lifeboats and rescue at sea illuminate the stained-glass window panels.
Cafes, bakeries and butchers, pie shops and fishmongers lure us in out of the wind: "pigs in blankets" demand investigation. The fishmongers' English specialities include plaice - often the subject of a play on words in the shop's trading name - cockles; whelks, minus their shells; smoked haddock with garlic; potted shrimps; jellied or smoked eel - the origin of the name Ely - with a thin, dark skin like a heavy-gauge sushi. Many offer Famous Cromer Crabs, crab meat served in the shell at 5 ($12) and up: sumptuous!
Inside the snug bakeries, the racks are laden with Bakewell tarts and Chelsea buns; bread pudding, a solid cake-like slice; Belgian buns and Eccles cakes. The gourmet butchers of Holt, a tweedy Georgian town of fine flint-walled townhouses, set out venison - shot through with dark red blood - hare and wild rabbit; mallard; pheasant and quail.
Sheringham is also Victorian, if busier than Cromer, but villages like Cley-next-the-Sea preserve the Georgian era, mixing red brick with that unmistakably English pebbled flint. The National Trust manages bird sanctuaries positioned amid the sand dunes and marshes. In these parts, windmills and church steeples are landmarks, rising higher than any natural elevation.
To the west, the Seven Burnhams are a string of villages once frequented by smugglers, linked by the River Burn. The great naval hero Admiral Horatio Nelson, born at Burnham Thorpe, lives on in local lore, including the name of many a pub. Many towns and villages herald themselves with quaintly painted signs, continuing an ancient tradition.
Turning south again, be uplifted once more at Norwich, the historic capital of East Anglia. Castle and cathedral, twinned in honey-coloured stone, tower over medieval England's largest walled town.
A 15th-century guildhall was the seat of government in Norwich for five centuries and is the largest medieval city hall outside London, while Elm Hill is a cobbled lane of timber-framed houses where wealthy merchants lived from the early 16th century onwards.
Norwich Cathedral is arguably one of the finest complete Romanesque buildings in Europe, a work begun 30 years after the Norman Conquest. The monastic cloisters are especially notable. Much of the surrounding precinct, the Close, now forms the King Edward VI School, which holds its assemblies in the cathedral and supplies the cathedral's choristers.
This long-weekend excursion into East Anglia has left more for a return journey, including Peterborough's memorable cathedral and the venerable port of Great Yarmouth.
Getting there: Train services link London's Liverpool Street Station with King's Lynn via Cambridge, although by Australian standards the fares are steep.
Visa requirements: Australian passport holders do not require a visa for the UK.
Currency: $A1 equals about 41 British pence.
The house, museum and gardens at Sandringham Estate are open to the public during summer, details at http://www.sandringhamestate.co.uk/
Ely Cathedral (www.cathedral.ely.anglican.org) is open daily, entry 4. Entry to Norwich Cathedral (www.cathedral.org.uk) is free.