Walsall, United Kingdom + Add a trip

Automobiles

Access the county via the M6, M40 or M5 (around two and a half hours from London; two hours from Manchester). National Express (www.nationalexpress.com) operates coaches from Birmingham, London, Swansea and Leeds to Worcester.

Planes

Birmingham International is the nearest airport to Worcester (40 minutes away) and has connections from Aberdeen, Belfast, Edinburgh and Glasgow with BMI Baby (www.bmibaby.com); Manchester and London Heathrow are each around two hours away.

Trains

There's a regular main line service linking Worcestershire with London Paddington, Birmingham New Street and Moor Street and other parts of the UK. For full services, see www.nationalrail.co.uk.

Dialing

UK country code: +44; Worcester: 01905; Stourport: 01299.

Reads

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (who once deigned to stay in Upton-upon-Severn); Bredon Hill from AE Housman's A Shropshire Lad (his home county gets a mention); an Elgar biography such as Elgar: An Anniversary Portrait by Nicholas Kenyon.

Do go / Don't Go

The countryside comes alive in late spring with bluebells and fruit-tree blossom.

Cuisine

Taxis

In Worcester and the county's bigger towns (such as Kidderminster and Stourport) you can hail cabs in the street, and most rail stations have ranks. Village-based cab-hunters will do best to book.

Tipping

Around 10-15 per cent is standard but check a discretionary 12.5 per cent hasn't already been added to your bill to avoid tipping twice.

Currency

Around 10-15 per cent is standard but check a discretionary 12.5 per cent hasn't already been added to your bill to avoid tipping twice.

Packing

Salt-proof swimmers for an afternoon dip at Droitwich's brine baths; an Elgar CD or two for your rolling rural road trip.

Arts

Visit the birthplace of the county's homegrown hero in Lower Broadheath - the Elgar Birthplace Museum (www.elgarfoundation.org) lets you see the composer's gramophone, manuscripts and study just as he left them. Expressive arts do well at the Malvern Theatres (www.malvern-theatres.co.uk), famous for previewing plays before they up sticks for the West End. Cross the moat at Harvington Hall (www.harvingtonhall.com), an Elizabethan manor near Kidderminster, to discover original wall-paintings and a series of priest holes.

And...

The Bredon Hill Standing Stones are steeped in superstition. It's thought one of them - the Bambury Stone - hobbles along to the riverbanks for a drink when the abbey's bells chime midnight. And the stones are known for their supposed healing properties - locals used to send their ailing kindred to pass between them in hope of a cure.

Shopping

For antiques, head to the age-old market town of Bridgnorth, or the boutiques of Bewdley on the banks of the Severn and edge of the Wyre Forest. Pick up some Royal Worcester porcelain from the museum in Worcester. Teme Valley has a farmers' market on the second Sunday of each month.

Viewpoint

Climb up the Clent Hills on a clear day and you can see over to the Cotswolds, Peak District and Black Mountains in Wales. From atop the Malverns, you've a 4,500-acre Worcestershire vista to gawp at. This eight-mile ridge is made from some of the oldest rock in Britain.

Something

Try out your ghost-busting skills at Clifton-upon-Teme - you're looking for a phantom horse and cart residents believe they saw passing through the village. And Ye Olde Black Cross in Bromsgrove is allegedly haunted by a soldier in search of Charles II during the Battle of Worcester.

April The British Asparagus Festival in the Evesham Valley is two months of cookery classes and concerts in celebration of the spear-shaped vegetable. June Watch the maypole dancers at the Ombersley Village Fete. August Celebrate the plums of Pershore at the Pershore Plum Festival, a month-long series of choirs, fireworks and feasting. October The Malvern Festival of performing arts has been taking place ever since George Bernard Shaw said it should in 1929.