Wells, United Kingdom

WELLS is a miniature cathedral city that has not significantly altered in eight hundred years. The cathedral was founded in the twelfth century and the nearby cottages on cobbled medieval Vicars' Close have been continuously occupied by members of the cathedral clergy since the mid-fourteenth century. The row of clerical houses on the north side of the cathedral green are mainly seventeenth- and eighteenth-century, though one, the Old Deanery, shows traces of its fifteenth-century origins. You could spend a good half-day soaking up the historic ambience here, and Wells also works well as an accommodation stop for visiting nearby attractions in the Mendip Hills, especially the Wookey Hole caves and Cheddar Gorge.