Places to explore in Isle of WightEngland · South East England

Chalk downs ending at the Needles, Osborne and Carisbrooke Castle, dinosaur-fossil coasts and sailing at Cowes, a short ferry from the mainland

394 km²

The three chalk sea stacks and red-and-white lighthouse off the western tip of the Isle of Wight, best seen from the down and battery above.

Queen Victoria's Italianate seaside palace.

Stands at the foot of the chalk stacks off the western tip of the Isle of Wight, a candy-striped tower amid one of the Channel's busiest seaways.

Hilltop castle where Charles I was imprisoned.

A west-coast surf beach on the Isle of Wight, backed by coloured cliffs, open downs and dinosaur footprints in the rocks

A startling brick church of 1907, home to a living Benedictine community.

Harbour village at the island's eastern tip, with houseboats, a windmill from about 1700 and a lifeboat station out over the sea

Isle of Wight

Undercliff village east of Ventnor with an 11th-century church, Swinburne's grave and a pond given by Stacpoole

Isle of Wight

Winkle Street's row of old cottages facing a stream and a stone sheepwash, with a mostly 13th-century church nearby

Isle of Wight

Sailing town on the Medina, home of Cowes Week and the Royal Yacht Squadron, with a chain ferry to East Cowes

Isle of Wight

Thatched cottages round a hilltop church with a rare medieval Lily Cross wall painting, and a model village open since 1952

Isle of Wight