Buckingham is a small, handsome market town in the north of the county that bears its name, wrapped in a loop of the river Great Ouse. Its centre is a pleasing jumble of Georgian brick, coaching inns and a castellated old gaol that now houses a little museum. The town also has the distinction of being home to the University of Buckingham, the first independent university in Britain, founded in the 1970s.
A few miles north, the landscape garden at Stowe is one of the great achievements of English garden design. Over the eighteenth century, the Temple family turned their estate into a political and philosophical manifesto in stone and greenery, with dozens of temples, monuments and bridges set among lakes and lawns. A young Lancelot Brown worked here as head gardener before he became Capability Brown. The house itself is now a school.
For riders, there is another lure: Silverstone, home of the British Grand Prix and the British round of MotoGP for many years, lies just over the border into Northamptonshire, a short hop north-west. Even when nothing is on, it is hard to ride past the signs without a twitch of the right wrist. Keep it for the track; the A43 is well policed.
The roads around Buckingham are classic English shire riding: hedgerows, gentle hills, honey-stone and brick villages, and B-roads that wriggle unpredictably between them. Surfaces vary from smooth to dreadful, and mud from farm traffic is common after rain. The town has fuel, cafés, pubs and a supermarket, and makes a calm, attractive place to begin or end a long day towards Dorset.