Chester originated as Deva or Castra Devana - the fortress city of the Twentieth Legion, Legio XX Valeria Victrix - in the late first century AD. Some of the basement walls under modern shops are pieces of that Roman fortress. The Roman amphitheatre, the largest yet found in Britain, lies just outside the eastern walls. The cathedral, built on the site of the medieval abbey of St Werburgh, dominates the centre. The Rows - the unique two-level medieval shopping galleries - run along the four main streets that radiate from Chester Cross, exactly where the Roman streets ran. The walls themselves form a nearly complete two-mile circuit, the only such circuit surviving in Britain. The Roodee racecourse sits inside a bend in the River Dee, where Roman boats once moored. And the Phoenix Tower on the eastern wall is the spot where King Charles I stood and watched his army lose the Battle of Rowton Heath in 1645. All of these are within walking distance of each other and of the railway station.

Chester is well-connected by train. Avanti West Coast runs hourly direct services from London Euston, taking about two and a half hours via Stafford and Crewe (though you may need to change at Crewe). Merseyrail's electric trains arrive every fifteen minutes from Liverpool Central, taking forty-five minutes via Birkenhead and the Wirral - effectively making Chester a Liverpool commuter destination. Manchester trains run every thirty minutes via Warrington and Runcorn, continuing along the Welsh coast all the way to Holyhead, which is the ferry port for Dublin. There are also direct services from Birmingham, Cardiff, and Leeds. National Express coaches run from London Victoria, taking about six hours via Heathrow, Oxford, Birmingham, and Stoke. By road, Chester is at the eastern end of the A55 - which becomes the M53 and crosses the M56 - making it about 170 miles from London, 90 from Birmingham, 40 from Manchester, and only 15 from Liverpool.

The standard one-day visit to Chester goes something like this. Start at the railway station, walk into town past the Thomas Brassey statue, and pick up the city walls at Eastgate - or at Northgate if you have arrived by bus. From either point you can walk the full circuit in about ninety minutes, but most people stop part-way to detour through the Rows along Eastgate Street and Bridge Street, where the upper-level walkways are lined with shops. The cathedral sits roughly in the middle of the walled area; its choir stalls have some of the finest medieval wood-carving in the country, and the bell tower (added in 1975) is the first new freestanding cathedral bell tower in Britain since the fifteenth century. The amphitheatre is just outside the southeast corner of the walls, near the Roman Gardens. The Groves - a riverside promenade that became fashionable in the early 1700s - runs along the north bank of the Dee and is where you board the river cruises. Grosvenor Park, given to the city in 1867 by the Second Marquess of Westminster, sits above it. None of these are far apart.

Chester is a serious shopping town for its size. The traditional black-and-white Tudor frontages of the Rows - most of them in fact Victorian revivals of the medieval style - house major chain stores alongside small independents. The indoor market sits behind the town hall. Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet, ten miles north by bus or car, is one of the largest designer outlets in Britain. For food, The Forge on Grosvenor Park Road serves modern British grills and opened in 2021. For drink, Chester is well stocked with historic English pubs - traditional pints in heavily timbered rooms - though almost all of them stop serving at around 11:30 PM. Watergates Wine Bar is one of the few exceptions, staying open until 2 AM on Fridays and Saturdays. Most B&Bs are clustered to the east of the city in the suburb of Hoole, about a mile from the centre and convenient for the railway station, though the walk in is not particularly attractive.

The Welsh border runs through Chester's western suburbs. The Wales Coast Path, the long-distance walking trail around the entire Welsh coastline, begins at the English-Welsh border just outside Chester, reached from the city via a canal link from the railway station. The first stretch through industrial Deeside is unromantic, but head west and the country opens up dramatically. The Victorian seaside resort of Llandudno and the mountain town of Betws-y-Coed - the gateway to Snowdonia National Park - are both about fifty miles away. To the north, Liverpool is fifteen miles by road and an easy train ride: the home of the Beatles, the Liver Building, the cathedrals, and one of Britain's most distinctive city skylines. Manchester, forty miles east, is the old Cottonopolis turned cosmopolitan metropolis. Chester sits at the centre of a small triangle of remarkable places, and once you have walked its walls and shopped its Rows you should keep moving.