Explore Chiswick to Windsor 
Chiswick House is a perfect little Neoclassical villa, designed by the third Earl of Burlington in the 1720s, and set in one of the most beautifully landscaped gardens in London. Like its Palladian prototype, the house was purpose-built as a "temple to the arts" - here, amid his fine art collection, Lord Burlington could entertain artistic friends such as Swift, Handel and Pope. Visitors enter via the lower floor, where you can pick up an audioguide, before heading up to the upper floor, a series of cleverly interconnecting rooms, each enjoying a wonderful view out onto the gardens - all, that is, except the Tribunal, the central octagonal hall, where the earl's finest paintings and sculptures would have been displayed.

To do a quick circuit of the gardens, head across the smooth carpet of grass, punctuated by urns and sphinxes, that sit under the shadow of two giant cedars of Lebanon. A great place from which to admire the northwest side of the house is from the stone benches of the exedra, a set of yew-hedge niches harbouring lions and copies of Roman statuary, situated beyond the cedars. Elsewhere, there's an Italian garden, a maze of high-hedge alleyways, a lake and a grassy amphitheatre, centred on an obelisk in a pond and overlooked by an Ionic temple.

April-Sept daily 10am-6pm; first three weeks of Oct daily 10am-5pm; late-Oct to March Wed-Sun 10am-4pm; £3.30. Chiswick train station, from Waterloo.

Chiswick House / Ham House / Hampton Court Palace / Hogarth House  / Kew Bridge Steam Museum