Highlights

Alexandra Palace and Park
Parkland Walk Nature Reserve
Highgate Woods
Highgate Village
Highgate Cemetary
Parliament Hill Fields
Hampstead Bathing Ponds
Hampstead Village

Walk type: Linear, starting at Alexandra Palace rail station (trains from Moorgate, direct on weekdays) and Kings Cross (direct at weekends) to finish at Hampstead tube (Northern line).

Time: 2.5 to 3 hours

Distance: 6 miles approx

Start. Come out of Alexandra Palace Station into Bedford Road. (If you come out onto Buckingham Road on the opposite side of the railway line, turn left and immediately left again across a footbridge to Bedford Road). Cross Bedford Road to the raised pavement, walk into Alexandra Park through an avenue of trees and look left for a view across a huge sweep of London from the City east to the towers of Canary Wharf and west to the tree covered slopes of Highgate.

Follow the path round to the right and take the first left, steeply up the hill to Alexandra Palace whose glass domed roof and Victorian brick pediments you now see rising in front of you.

Ally Pally, as Londoners call it, has had a chequered history. Since its opening in 1873 as a Victorian People's Palace, it has burned down twice, made history as the place from which television signals were broadcast for the first time and housed 17,000 German and other civilians interned during the First World War, an event commemorated by an An Anglo-German Family History Society plaque on the wall on your right as you walk along the terrace. Now the Palace is best known for its skating rink and as a venue for conferences and exhibitions, as well as its park, preserved for the public by Act of Parliament in 1900.

Don't go down the steps to your left but continue straight on to the end of the terrace and follow it round the building. The Palace's own pub, the The Phoenix, is popular mainly for its outdoor terrace and great views, so unless you're desperate for refreshment, save yourself for a better choice of bars and restaurants in Highgate or Hampstead.

Go down the steps from the terrace to Alexandra Palace Way, cross and follow the path directly opposite. This is a short cut across the loop of Alexandra Palace Way, which you reach and cross again. Continue straight on along a clear path with the Garden Centre at Alexandra Palace on your left. Where the path forks, bear left through a straight avenue of trees.

At a second fork, bear left again to Muswell Hill (the road not the place) through a covered path over the garden centre. If you need a refreshment stop at this point, go up the steps to your left and turn right along the road to reach Muswell Hill. This hilltop suburb is well worth a detour to admire its satisfyingly well-preserved Edwardian architecture and burgeoning restaurant scene.

Otherwise keep on the path and follow it round to the left under a subway to a wooded path. This is the Parkland Walk, once the route of the railway line between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace via Highgate and now a 4.5 mile linear nature reserve of wooded paths and fascinating remains of viaducts, platforms and tunnels. The railway line was opened between Finsbury Park and Highgate in 1867 with a branch to Alexandra Palace added in 1873 but the line was closed to passengers in 1954. Look left when the path opens out to a high level viaduct for extensive views across north London to Docklands and Shooters Hill and the trees of Queen's Wood turning gold as autumn sets in.

Emerge onto Muswell Hill Road, turn right and take the second path on the right into Highgate Wood through black metal gates. These restful and well-maintained woods have been run by the Corporation of London since 1886. Follow the sign left saying café, toilet and playground along a wide wooded path. At the fork, take the left hand path, signposted with a Capital Ring sign, then keep straight on, ignoring another CR sign taking you left out into the road. Leave the wood at Gypsy Gate, cross the A1 at the pedestrian light and walk up Southwood Lane to Highgate Village.

Highgate Village is London's highest point, a cluster of (very expensive) Georgian and Victorian houses grouped around South Grove at the top of the High Street and down the steeply sloping High Street itself, all fiercely preserved from change by an active conservation society. Highgate School, on your right as you reach the junction of Southwood Lane and Highgate High Street, is a boys' public school attended by entrepreneur Sir Clive Sinclair, poet Sir John Betjeman and home secretary Charles Clarke among others.

This is a good place to stop for a drink or a meal. Pubs include the Angel Inn Angel Inn which serves food and has a range of Belgian beers and there is a choice of restaurants.

From Southwood Lane, turn left then right into South Grove past the white early Victorian Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution and take the first left down Swains Lane. At the bottom of this steep hill is Highgate Cemetary , the most well-known of London's Victorian cemetaries and the resting place of Karl Marx. The cemetary is actually in two parts, of which the newer east part is still open to the public. It was rescued from dereliction and neglect by volunteers but the graves are still overgrown, cloaked in ivy and weeds and definitely worth a detour. If the cemetary is closed, you can still get a good view through the railings further down Swains Lane.

Cross Swains Lane and turn right into Oakeshott Avenue, a road of distinctive half-timbered mansion blocks. This is the Holly Lodge Estate , built originally in the 1920s as bedsits for single women coming to work in London as clerks or secretaries and now being refurbished with the self contained bathrooms and kitchens the original architects considered unnecessary.

Turn left into Highgate West Hill, walk down the hill past a parade of shops and take the entrance to Parliament Hill Fields on the right. Continue straight ahead past Highgate Ponds to The Writer, a sculpture of a vast table and chair by Italian sculptor Giancarlo Neri opened in June 2005. It's aptly placed on Hampstead Heath, the open space of choice for the many London writers living in Hampstead and Highgate. The 800 acres of woodland, ponds and grass which make up inner London's largest and possibly best loved open space were nearly built over before being saved for the public in 1871.

Take the path straight up the hill with The Writer on your right. You're standing on the top of Parliament Hill Fields, the last high point on the walk and the highest open space in London, with views to St Paul's, the City and the Telecom Tower.

Follow the path down the other side straight down and slightly left between railings to Hampstead Ponds. These three bathing ponds, the Mixed, Mens' and Ladies' are a treasured resource for the many people who swim in them every day and there was uproar earlier this year when the Corporation of London tried to close them down on cost grounds.

Continue straight on, slightly up hill towards a brick and stucco mansion block and look for a path to the right of the block which brings you out onto Well Walk. The road name recalls Hampstead's history as a spa in the eighteenth century, as does the red brick house called Wellside on the left, built on the site of the old Hampstead pump room in 1892.

Well Walk turns into Flask Walk which takes you up to Hampstead Village and the end of the walk at Hampstead tube. For a well-deserved meal or drink, the Wells Tavern in Well Walk has a good wine list, real ale and an interesting bar menu (although dress code is quite smart so sweaty walkers have to tough it out). Otherwise Hampstead Village has everything from McDonalds to expensive restaurants.

Times recommends

• Win a Zeppelin flight over London
• A first timer's guide to... Morocco
• The budget guide to the French Riviera