Sights in Dorset
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Brownsea Island
This small, wooded island in the middle of Poole harbour played a key role in a global movement famous for three-fingered salutes, shorts and toggles – Lord Baden-Powell staged the first ever scout camp here in 1907. Today trails weave through heath and woods, past peacocks, red squirrels, red deer and a wealth of birdlife.
There are free guided walks ; subjects include the wartime island, smugglers and pirates.
Boats run by Brownsea Island Ferries leave from Poole Quay (adult/child return £8.50/5.50) and Sandbanks (adult/child return £5/4). Services operate when the island is open only and the last boat is normally at about 4.30pm.
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Dorset County Museum
The Thomas Hardy collection here the is the biggest in the world. It offers extraordinary insights into his creative process – reading his cramped handwriting, it's often possible to spot where he's crossed out one word and substituted another. There's also a wonderful reconstruction of his study at Max Gate and a letter from Siegfried Sassoon, asking Hardy if Sassoon can dedicate his first book of poems to him.
As well as the superb Hardy exhibits, look out for Jurassic Coast fossils, especially the huge ichthyosaur and the 6ft fore paddle of a plesiosaur. Bronze and Iron Age finds from Maiden Castle include a treasure trove of coins and neck rings, while Roman artefact…
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Black Ven
Search for fossils yourself: at low tide, head a mile east along the beach to Black Ven, a mudflow that brings fossil-filled deposits onto the shores. The sea washes away the silt exposing waves of prehistoric treasures. The site does come with safety warnings: it's only accessible within two hours of low tide (check at the tourist office for times) and it's easy to get cut off. Steer at least 20m clear of the highly unstable cliffs and be aware the rocks are very slippery.
Responsible fossil collecting is positively encouraged.
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Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum
The Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum is an ostentatious mix of Italianate villa, Scottish baronial pile and Japanese gardens. It was built at the end of the 1800s for Merton and Annie Russell-Cotes as somewhere to showcase the remarkable range of souvenirs gathered on their world travels - look out for a plaster version of the Parthenon frieze by the stairs, Maori woodcarving and Persian tiles.
The house is also dripping with Victorian art and paintings by Rossetti, Edwin Landseer and William Frith.
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7-Mile Beach
Backed by 3000 deck chairs, Bournemouth's big draw is its 7-mile sandy beach. Regularly clocking up seaside awards, it stretches from Southborne in the far east to Alum Chine in the west - an immense promenade backed by ornamental gardens, cafés and toilets. It also prides itself on two piers (Bournemouth and Boscombe).
Around Bournemouth Pier you can be part of centuries of tradition and hire beach chalets, deck chairs, windbreaks and parasols, as well as sit-on-board kayaks.
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Cobb
First built in the 13th century, this curling, protective barrier has been strengthened and extended over the years, so it doesn't present the elegant line it once did, but it's still hard to resist wandering its length for a wistful, sea-gazing Meryl moment at the tip.
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Dinosaurland Fossil Museum
The Dinosaurland Fossil Museum is a mini, indoor Jurassic Park - packed with the remains of belemnites, thrissops and the graceful plesiosaur. Its timeline emphasises what an insignificant blip humans are and the museum does a subtle, but good, education job. Lifelike dinosaur models will thrill youngsters - the fossilised tyrannosaurus eggs and 73kg dinosaur dung will have them in raptures.
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Max Gate
Hardy was a trained architect and designed this house, where he lived from 1885 until his death in 1928. Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure were both written here, and the house contains several pieces of original furniture, but otherwise it's a little slim on sights. The house is a mile east of Dorchester on the A352.
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Lyme Regis Philpot Museum
Mary Anning found the first full ichthyosaur skeleton near Lyme in 1814. The site of her former home is now the excellent Lyme Regis Philpot Museum. An incredibly famous fossilist in her day, the bonneted Miss Anning did much to pioneer the science of modern-day palaeontology; the museum exhibits her story along with spectacular fossils and other prehistoric finds.
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Nothe Fort
Crowning the headland beside Weymouth Harbour, these photogenic 19th-century defences are studded with cannons, rifles, searchlights and 12-inch coastal guns. Exhibits detail the Roman invasion of Dorset, a Victorian soldier's drill, and Weymouth in WWII. Commanding an armoured car and clambering around the magazine prove popular with regiments of children.
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Waterfront Museum
This beautifully restored 15th-century warehouse is home to a 2300-year old Iron Age logboat dredged up from Poole Harbour. At 10m long and 14 tonnes, it's the largest to be found in southern Britain and probably carried 18 people. It was hand-chiselled from a single tree; centuries later you can still see the blade marks in the wood.
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Local History Centre
This small but impressive centre can be found, thanks to a Heritage Lottery Fund grant, in the historic town cellars at the back of the Waterfront Museum . It offers an in-depth history of Poole including archaeology, architecture, transport and local families. Naturally, Poole's maritime past is a drawcard, pooling information on trade and industry.
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Hardy's statue
Look out for Hardy's statue at the top of High West St in Dorchester. You can also try and track down what's thought to be the red and grey brick inspiration for the Mayor of Casterbridge's house, now a Barclays Bank branch, in South St, and visit the Maumbury Rings; the location of Henchard's secret meetings in the same book.
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Roman villa
Dorchester was once a thriving Roman settlement and excavations have uncovered the foundations of a 1st-century Roman villa behind the town hall on Northern Hay. The layout of the house is clearly visible and the remains of the main building, enclosed in a glass structure, boast remarkable mosaic floors.
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Oceanarium
Underwater tunnels bring you eye-to-eye with mean-looking sharks, massive moray eels and giant turtles in watery worlds ranging from Key West and the Ganges to Africa and the Med.
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Maumbury Rings
Just south of the town centre are the Maumbury Rings. These steep-sided, grass-covered ridges were a Neolithic henge before the Romans turned them into an amphitheatre. These days they're an idyllic picnic spot and venue for open-air music and drama events, check locally for listings.
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Undercliff Nature Reserve
A 2-mile hike west of Lyme along the coast path takes you into the lush rainforest-esque Undercliff Nature Reserve. It's a landscape of landslips - partly collapsed cliffs, exposed tree roots and tangles of brambles. Follow the signs from the Holmbush car park.
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Ammonite Pavement
A mile along Monmouth Beach to the west, hunt out the extraordinary ammonite pavement - hundreds of fossilised, swirling, sea creatures exposed in layers of rock. The beach is accessible at all stages of the tide, the best displays are around low water.
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Pleasure Gardens
Bournemouth's Pleasure Gardens are one bit of the Victorian town that have survived - they're even Grade II-listed. This colourful belt of greenery, shrubs and herbaceous perennials stretches one and a half miles north west from the seafront.
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Hardy's Cottage
The author was born at this picturesque cob-and-thatch house. Again it's a little short on attractions, but makes an evocative stop for Hardy completists. It's in Higher Bockhampton, 3 miles northeast of Dorchester.
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Beach
Weymouth's beach is a chance to surrender to your inner kitsch and rent a deck chair, sun lounger or a pedalo. Alternatively, go all Californian and join a volleyball game.
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Teddy Bear Museum
Populated by historical and famous bears, plus a rather disturbing family of human-sized teddies.
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Terracotta Warriors Museum
The Terracotta Warriors Museum whisks you off to 8th-century China for an atmospheric reconstruction of the famous figures, as well as assorted costumes and armour.
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Tutankhamen Exhibition
At the Tutankhamen Exhibition you get to experience the sights, sounds and smells of ancient Egypt in a fake-gold mock-up of the Pharaoh's tomb.
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Weymouth Museum
The Weymouth Museum is strong on the Great Western Railway, as well as smuggling, paddle steamers and shipwrecks.
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