Downpatrick is a compact County Down town with a claim that is impossible to ignore: this is where St Patrick is said to be buried. The town has traded on that link for centuries, but the better reason to come is that the Patrick story sits among real early Christian sites, Georgian streets, ruined abbeys, and low drumlin countryside.
The centre is easy to walk. Down Cathedral, the St Patrick Centre, and Down County Museum sit close together, so the town's religious and civic history can be read in a short loop.
The best day here reaches beyond the centre. Inch Abbey stands in a green bend of the River Quoile, Struell Wells keeps an older holy-well tradition alive, and Ballynoe Stone Circle pushes the landscape's story back into prehistory. Downpatrick is close to Belfast, but it feels like a different Ireland.