Plymouth is inextricably linked with the sea and the Royal Navy and sits between the mouths of two rivers, the Plym and the Tamar. Sir Francis Drake started and finished his historic circumnavigation of the world in Plymouth Sound. The Pilgrim Fathers eventually set out for the new world from here on The Mayflower. Captain James Cook sailed from Plymouth on each of his three voyages of discovery. So too did Charles Darwin on the Beagle, and, of course, the first person to solo circumnavigate the globe - Sir Francis Chichester.

There are many old buildings within the city boundaries, including half a dozen medieval churches. Over the last 500 years, life in Plymouth has very much been dominated by war and the services. There were Breton raids in the early fifteenth century. In Elizabethan times Sir Francis Drake famously played bowls on Plymouth Hoe as he waited for the Spanish Armada.

In the English Civil War Plymouth was the only Roundhead stronghold to successfully hold out against the King. The huge Royal Dockyard was built in the late Seventeenth Century and has been a major employer in the city ever since. The Royal Citadel on the Hoe has been in continuous military occupation since the late 1660s.

Other important buildings include the Royal Naval Hospital, built in the 1760s, the Military Hospital, built in 1797, the Royal Marine Barracks and the Royal William Victualling Yard. The Barbican area of the city is rich with old streets and buildings and is said to have the largest area of cobbled streeting in Britain. The National Maritime Aquarium and Scitech Plymouth Dome introduces the City history as do the City Museum and Art Gallery.