Like so many others during the pandemic, we’ve fallen in love with the south west, so decided to spend a week there. We started our trip at Salcombe’s newest hotel, the Harbour Beach Club, which has just opened on South Sands beach, a thirty minute walk from the Devon town’s centre (which is absolutely rammed with gorgeous restaurants, cafes and shops). But really, there’s no reason to leave (a shuttle bus can also take you if you absolutely must), for what more could one ask for than a five star hotel and a view of one of the prettiest estuaries in all of England? There’s a spa, a swimming pool, a divine restaurant, and yoga on the beach if the weather happens to be nice. It wasn’t, but that didn’t stop us enjoying our time there – one afternoon, we flopped in our suite watching movies, and the sea crashing onto the beach. When it cheered up, we met the hotel’s resident nature expert, Ali, who took us for a seal watching walk. (The hotel has wellies on hand for people like me who have forgotten to pack them). Then we borrowed wet suits and jumped in the sea, before heading to the hot tub in the spa.
At the end of our stay, we drove to Cornwall, making our way to one of my favourite places in the world: St Mawes, on the Roseland Peninsula. In many ways, St Mawes is a smaller, more intimate version of Salcombe, with fewer shops, but just as many places to eat, drink and be merry. It has become a regular holiday spot for us during the pandemic – I have hesitated to write about where we stay, because I want to keep it all to myself. But Dreamcatchers, which you can rent through St Mawes Retreats, is the most spectacular self-catering home I have stayed in, one that can feel remarkably similar to a hotel given the dreamy Hypnos beds, and the concierge services you can take advantage of through the rental company. They saw to it that one of the two fridges was stocked with locally produced food (a fish pie and a beef stew), and the children’s play room doubled as a massage room when a therapist came to give me a dreamy treatment.