Touring with American relatives demands the Kent and Sussex circle tour

Dealing with visiting American friends and relatives is always a bit of a challenge. I want to give them the most memorable time possible, taking them to the best options and entertaining them with great stories, without spending too much time in the car and or dragging them to the places everyone at home has been to already. And, of course, it's lovely to vary my own routine, so I don't end up bored rigid seeing the same sights time and again.

Ergo, one of the most oft-repeated tours in my sightseeing bag of tricks is a circle tour from London, dropping down into the leafy back lanes of Kent, picking one blockbuster sight out of the many on offer, then meandering through some picturesque villages to the coast before taking a main road home. That's about 280 miles on the odometer in the day, which isn't for the faint hearted driver, but does deliver excellent value for the ambitious tourist with just a day to get outside of London.

This weekend's tourists were my best friend from high school, with whom I've just spent the week in the Lake District, and her parents, who are stopping in London en route to Paris and Venice. It was their first trip to the UK. They'd spent an intense few days in London doing a power circuit of the main sights. Now it was time to introduce them to the joys of the English countryside.

Sadly, the weather was absolutely miserable. Cold, grey, with a steady drizzle for most of the day. Fortunately, Americans are conditioned to expect rain in England and actually say it adds to the atmosphere of their experience. Anne's Dad, a keen amateur photographer, even insisted the leaden skies would help his shots. They're probably just being polite.

We started the day at Hever Castle near Edenbridge, Kent. This place has grown on me. When I first visited, I was a bit more of a snob about my sightseeing and tended to discount Hever as more Disney than real. Purchased by the Astors in the early 20th century and heavily restored, it's a stage set from a film about the Tudors rather than an authentic Tudor site. It's also privately owned, so doesn't have the academic gravitas of properties managed by the National Trust or English Heritage. Experience has taught me to say "who cares?". If there's one property in the Southeast likely to delight Americans, this is it. And the private ownership ensures that everything is in the best repair, with displays constantly changing and attractions being added to keep visitors returning.

Hever is a little gem of an early Tudor castle, square with a deep internal courtyard, given added light by a generous courtyard in its middle. It was the childhood home of Anne Boleyn and frequently serves as a film set, most recently for The Other Boleyn Girl. Visitors love those associations because they make history more tangible. The rooms may be Tudorbethan recreation, but they're beautifully done, with rich carving demonstrating that workmanship in the early 20th century could be just as beautiful as much older examples. The Astors were very rich and spared nothing on their collections. So while the rooms are new, their contents are precious and authentic. As you would expect, there's a great collection here of things related to the Boleyns, and a beautiful set of Tudor portraits. The admission price includes an audio guide.

Hever's gardens are as noteworthy as the house. Near the moat, they're resolutely Tudor in flavour, with a maze, topiary (including a famous topiary chess set) and formal knot gardens. Moving beyond, the landscape is typical English picturesque, with rolling hills, a variety of noble trees and knots of azaleas and rhododendron currently in vivid bloom. The blockbuster sight, however, is the Italian gardens, hidden from direct view from the castle by a large wall and gates. Once through the barrier, you find yourself in a huge walled enclosure ... perhaps 150 yards long and 75 yards wide, with a pergola running down one side, a long walk down the other, perfect lawns and hedges in the middle and the sides segmented into smaller garden rooms by pieces of wall. The wall running along the pergola is planted grotto style, packed with ferns, mosses and dripping rivulets of water. The other wall shelters a magnificent collection of Greek and Roman statuary, now used as focal points for floral display. An architectural flourish at the end of the garden can hold a band or theatrical group (they still do many events here), and a pass through the open arcade there brings you out onto a terrace dominated by a baroque sculpture group facing the large lake Astor had dug for the view and a bit of messing about on the water.

I wonder if today's super rich build with this sort of elegant style?

We'd worked up quite an appetite after several hours of soggy wandering, thus we made it no further than the pub outside the castle gates for lunch. I've avoided this place for years, assuming that any pub directly across from a major attraction was bound to be a tourist trap. Wrong again. The Henry VIII inn was packed, at least half the crowd obviously local. Selections from the traditional pub menu (pies, sausage & mash, burgers) were served promptly, piping hot and tasty. We had a bit of a chat with the locals before mobilising for the rest of the day.

Next came a bit of a wander through Kent, showing off a few picturesque villages. First to Chiddingstone, just a single street but one of rare beauty. Merchant Ivory fans will recognise it instantly as the village where the Honeychurch family lived in Room with a View. Next on to Penshurst, another charming collection of village architecture, this time dominated by the impressive, late medieval pile of Penshurst Place. It was too late in the day for a visit, but we had a peek at the house from the outside and the gardens spreading around it.

With plenty of time before sunset, I turned the car toward the coast to give my visitors a taste of white cliffs. But NOT Dover; natives know there are better beauty spots. On the way we passed through Eastbourne and drove along the seafront, providing a completely different look and feel from the earlier part of the day. The high Victorian promenade of seaside buildings, pier and waterfront attractions are a snapshot of imperial glory days and, as this is a fairly prosperous part of the world, still maintain their old world elegance. It's up above Eastbourne that you come for the cliffs and spectacular views.

Beachy Head is a large piece of coastal land now owned and protected by the National Trust. Farm and grasslands sweep upwards to cliff edge, from where there's a sharp drop of several hundred feet into the channel. The cliffs are composed of white chalk. Beautiful, but not recommended to get too close; this unstable material crumbles into the sea at points each year. The best views are to be had from Birling Gap, about half way along the coastal drive. Here the land lowers between two cliffs. There's an observation point from which you can climb down to the beach, or just appreciate the magnificence of the Seven Sisters Cliffs sweeping away to the west. Back to our movie theme: Often when you see the white cliffs of Dover in films, you're actually looking at these, which are more beautiful and devoid of the industry that clutters Dover today.

Driving off the headlands, we even managed to encounter a game of village cricket on a well-maintained ground surrounded by adorable village buildings. The tourists were delighted. And I was quite delighted with myself, able to give a coherent explanation to my visitors of what was going on out there. Of course, I used baseball language for understanding, which would have made my cricket-mad Australian mate shudder, but I think I did quite well.

Almost time to turn back towards London, but not before a quick hop down the coast for a drive along the seafront at Brighton. The main sight here is, of course, the Brighton Pavilion. This outrageous Indian palace with Oriental interiors was George IVs holiday retreat. Though it's well worth a visit inside, it's possible to grasp all the insanity, garishness and beauty of the place looking at the exterior. Which is a good thing, because it was 7 o'clock and time to call it a day.

We stopped for a curry half way back to London, dropped Anne's parents off at their Mayfair hotel and arrived home before 11. Tired, but mission accomplished. Despite the weather, the tourists had all tasted the magic of the English countryside in a variety of its guises. I suspect they'll be back. Once bitten, it's hard to resist.