Cheltenham

Cheltenham is the only proper town in the Cotswolds, everything else is either a market town or a village with ideas above its station. It has a population of over 100,000, a university, two outstanding grammar schools, and enough Regency architecture to make Bath jealous. It's also the only place in the area where you can get good Korean food, see live music that isn't folk, and buy clothes that weren't made for retired couples with Labradors.

The town became fashionable in the 18th century when spa waters were discovered and everyone with money decided bathing in mineral water was the done thing. The result is the Promenade, one of the most beautiful tree-lined streets in England, flanked by Regency townhouses and Municipal Gardens that are genuinely lovely. The town never really stopped being posh after that, and it shows. This is where Cotswolds money actually lives when it wants schools, restaurants, and a John Lewis.

Cheltenham Racecourse is what the town's famous for outside the UK. The Cheltenham Festival in March is the most important week in National Hunt racing, four days of top-class horse racing that the entire country pays attention to, culminating in the Gold Cup on Friday. If you're here during Festival week and you're not into racing, leave town. The place is overrun, hotels are booked solid, and pints are £8. If you are into racing, it's one of the best weeks of the year.

The town centre is Georgian and Regency, with the Promenade and Montpellier being the obvious highlights. Montpellier Walk has a row of shops with caryatids, female figures holding up the roof, copied from the Acropolis in Athens, which is exactly the kind of thing Regency architects thought was a good idea. The Rotunda on Montpellier Walk was the original pump room and is now a Lloyds Bank, which is both a shame and very Cheltenham.

For food, the town has a proper range. The Ivy on the Promenade is the posh chain option and does decent brasserie food in a gorgeous building. Purslane on Suffolk Parade is Michelin-starred if you want something serious. Coconut Tree does Sri Lankan street food and is always rammed. The Daffodil is a converted art deco cinema on Suffolk Parade that's been turned into a restaurant and bar, worth seeing just for the interior.

Cheltenham has two excellent bookshops, The Suffolk Anthology on Suffolk Parade and Waterstones in the Regent Arcade and a Waterstones that actually stocks things. Cavendish House is the department store that predates John Lewis and is still going. The Brewery Quarter and Regent Arcade have the usual high street chains if that's what you need.

Pittville Park in the north of town is where locals go to walk, run, and let their kids loose. Pittville Pump Room at the centre of it is a Regency spa building that's now used for weddings and concerts, and you can still taste the spa water if you're curious. It's disgusting, heavily mineralised and vaguely sulphurous, but it's free and it's a rite of passage.

The Everyman Theatre on Regent Street is the main venue for theatre, and the programme's usually excellent. Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Literature Festival, Music Festival, and Science Festival all happen at different points in the year and are genuinely world-class events that bring in serious names.

GCHQ is on the edge of town, the government listening post that looks like a giant doughnut. You can't visit it, obviously, but it employs thousands of people and is one of the reasons Cheltenham has an unusually high number of mathematicians and cryptographers per capita.

Parking in the town centre is paid and can be a pain, use the Regent Arcade or Royal Well multi-storeys. Alternatively, park at the racecourse (free) and walk in if it's not race day.

Cheltenham is the Cotswolds town for people who actually want to live in a functioning place rather than a museum. It's not as pretty as Chipping Campden or Stow, but it's a hundred times more useful, and if you're planning to spend any serious time in the area it's worth getting to know properly.