Short breaks tips

Coming from New England, which is famous for its fall colours, I was disillusioned by the sheer multitude of brown, crumpled horse-chestnut leaves on display in Paris in autumn. So I began my quest for hints of gold, amber, russet and scarlet and have been richly rewarded.

Forgive me for sounding a little smug. You would too if you were sitting in stylish lodgings sipping a glass of grand cru minutes away from a prestigious address, the Avenue de Champagne in Épernay, east of Paris. The mile-long avenue is lined with expensive champagne houses, from Moët & Chandon to Perrier-Jouët.

With the majestic domes of the Royal Pavilion as its backdrop – lit in magical neon colours if you go after dark – this real ice rink is a popular highlight of Brighton’s yuletide offering, and the only one in the UK powered by renewable energy. Families are warmly welcomed, with penguin skate aids available for £5 and a beginners’ rink where young skaters can safely build confidence on the ice. Rinkside, a covered bar and café and outdoor terraced areas offer mulled wine, mince pies, cakes, snacks and a decent children’s menu – and a great place to sit and watch if you don’t want to risk the ice yourself.Adults and children aged 12 and over £18, concessions £15, 12 and under £14, royalpavilionicerink.co.uk; family room, B&B, from £179, queenshotelbrighton.com

It’s a late-October afternoon at Benone Strand on the Causeway Coast in County Derry, and the low sun is collapsing between wedges of dense cloud. There’s empty beach as far as the eye can see, apart from the odd horse-rider galloping through the shallows. My boyfriend and I are in swim shorts on the hard sand, despite the temperature being in single figures. But we’re not shivering. Not at all. We’ve just boiled our bones in the Finnish-style Hotbox sauna perched at the water’s edge.

This year has been a good one for Vilnius. The Lithuanian capital celebrated its 700th birthday on 25 January 2023, and a few months later it was named the European Union’s green capital for 2025. Perhaps most symbolically – as Lithuania continues to firmly reject its Soviet past and align itself closer with the west – Vilnius played host to the Nato summit in July.

Experience the unique beauty of the New Forest national park on a winter cycling adventure. With fewer crowds, you can enjoy peaceful rides through ancient woodlands and across heathlands. Remember to dress in warm layers, check your bike for winter readiness, and bring some hot tea or coffee in a Thermos to savour in the midst of your journey. Wildlife, serene landscapes and crisp winter air make this a fantastic outdoor activity in the UK.Magsy Griffin

I hadn’t planned my walk along the Sankey Canal to coincide with the axing of HS2 but it happened like that. It was a sunny day. I had been promising myself a hike along the towpath for ages. I grew up in the area and it holds a special place in my affections. As I wandered it struck me that this under-explored waterway was arguably the UK’s first significant development in infrastructure since the Romans built roads. It was built in two years.

“Look,” said Liam Herringshaw, pointing at a melon-sized bulge in the layers of rock fronting the prom in Scarborough. “There’s where a five-toed dinosaur walked 160 million years ago.”

The Netherlands’ second city is a winner for those weary of its more famous (and oversubscribed) rival. Sure, there’s water – it’s Europe’s largest port, after all – with rivers, canals and harbours at every turn. But this sprawling metropolis doesn’t yield its pleasures as easily as Amsterdam, largely because second world war bombing destroyed most of the historic centre. Its pioneering postwar architecture is, however, what makes “Manhattan on the Maas” so fascinating. Treasures include the 1970s Cube Houses designed by Piet Blom, the landmark cable-stayed Erasmus Bridge, the 1960 retro-futuristic Euromast and eclectic buildings in the leafily landscaped Museumpark. Alongside design museum Het Nieuwe Instituut and the Kunsthal gallery, a must-visit is The Depot, an ambitious €94m bowl-shaped “storage facility” for the city’s art collection, its rooftop cafe boasting panoramic views. Equally compelling is Delfshaven, which escaped bombing, and is now home to waterside pubs, a microbrewery and tucked-away restaurants.

Take a little staircase down from an old tollbooth on one of Leiden’s 88 bridges and hop on to one of the electric tour boats. I loved drifting along the canals of this stunning old Dutch city past townhouses as fine as any in Amsterdam, the botanical gardens, windmills, university buildings and the 17th-century observatory. Except in summer, ducks, swans and local wild swimmers outnumber tourists. You can scout out the best waterside terrace cafes for lunch, daydream about living on one of the many well-kept houseboats with their flower-filled decks, and plan excursions by water further afield; the city canals link up along the waterways for countryside day cruises to Delft, Haarlem or the coast.Maartje

In the glare of the morning sun, the streets of downtown Faro are a textural hot mess. A faded art deco shopfront sits cheek by crumbling jowl with its neighbour’s rusting balustrades and handmade fondant tiles. A bank swerves around the corner like an ice-cream sandwich hit by pistachio light. Everywhere there are buildings you might generously describe as less art and more nouveau. These are layers of the near past – and I’m smitten.

Celebrating its 10th birthday this year, Glow Wild at Wakehurst, Kew’s more rural botanic garden in the Sussex countryside, will feature a huge illuminated whale and a projected version of Catherine Nelson’s colourful Planet Wakehurst, one of the UK’s biggest outdoor artworks. There will be thousands of lanterns as always, crafted by local volunteers, community groups and artists. This year’s shapes include buzzing pollinators, leaping fish, raindrops, thunderclouds and tiny seahorses. Wakehurst boasts the UK’s tallest living Christmas tree, a 37-metre-high giant redwood decorated with 1,800 bulbs. There’s an interactive puppet show near the marshmallow-toasting firepit and wishing stars to hang in the trees.Various evenings from 23 November to 1 January, adult from £18, child from £11.50,kew.org

Berney Arms is one of England’s most remote railway stations. You can only get to this stretch of the Norfolk Broads by train, boat or a long walk. It’s 25 minutes’ train ride from Norwich, but only two trains stop most days, and I’ve never seen anyone else getting off. Outside the train window, a roe deer steps delicately through green marshes and an egret stands poised by the water. The strange wild beauty is what keeps me coming back. This time I’m arriving with my husband on the 7.36am train from Norwich to walk along the River Yare to Reedham. We head through into the first carriage, the only one that fits next to the tiny station.

With curved architecture and a multicoloured mural encompassing the exterior, Towner Eastbourne is an eye-catching stalwart of the south coast’s art scene. This year it celebrates its centenary with Towner 100: The Living Collection, which has accompanying text panels helping youngsters to learn their way around the exhibits. A 20-minute stroll west leads you to Holywell Retreat, a shingle beach with rockpooling and a tea chalet offering breakfast or lunch with a view. Admission free, townereastbourne.org.uk; family room, B&B, from £146, lansdownehotel.co.uk (gallery visitors to the hotel can claim a £20 discount)

I’ve spent my working life as bookseller, book marketer, publisher and now author, so it was probably inevitable that I would lean heavily on literature for my book Real Dorset. Luckily for me, writers have frequently turned to Dorset for their inspiration.

I’ve got a bit of a thing for my elders. As a kid I wouldn’t leave my great-aunt alone. In my early 30s, I went on six coach holidays with a load of strangers twice my age for my book, The Gran Tour. So it won’t come as a surprise to learn that I recently dragged my old man to Scarborough for a mini-break. When I say dragged, I’m only half-joking. He didn’t fancy the coach ride, for a start. For the first hour of the journey north from Portsmouth, Dad behaved like a hostage, but by the time we’d reached Reading he was leaning across the aisle to help a couple with the crossword.

The fortunes of this estuary island are linked to the tides

It has the same chalky soil as the Champagne region and its wine has the same protected status – and often beats French fizz in blind tastings. Now Sussex has launched a plan to attract many more visitors to its 138 vineyards, aiming to increase the value of wine tourism from £25m today to £283m by 2040.

It’s a gloriously sunny, if gusty, early-June day at Gothenburg’s new bathing harbour. My son Zac and I are among the first to brave the elements at an open-air complex of swimming and diving pools occupying part of Frihamnen, the city’s docklands that began to fall into disuse in the 1970s.

Last summer I took a cruise of the Baltic. I wanted to know if a millennial could cruise independently and still have a laugh. (They can. Just.) I was writing a book about fun at the time, and fancied that two weeks of shuffleboard and Nordic stop-offs might prove a decent source of the f-stuff. And so it proved. Though I could have done with more than an hour in Stockholm.