Twin Vegas winner
HEAD to San Fran and Sin City on a dream getaway. The £949 twin-centre trip includes three nights at four-star Serrano Hotel, room only, plus a Golden Gate Bay cruise. Then it’s four nights in Vegas at four-star Monte Carlo Resort, room only, with dining and shopping vouchers. Internal flight and return flights from Heathrow on May 3 included. Visit hayesandjarvis.co.uk. THE glorious cliffs of Broadchurch in Dorset are back on our screens – and remind us how big a part the British countryside plays in our favourite detective shows. It all started with a boy’s body at the foot of the cliffs. And now David Tennant and Olivia Colman are fronting the third and final series as the spotlight falls again on the Dorset coastline and the stunning golden cliffs of West Bay, near Bridport.
Writer Chris Chibnall has described his hit series as “a love letter to the scenery of the Jurassic Coast”. DO: The Broadchurch Trail (visit-dorset.com). Bridport has been dubbed Notting Hill on Sea, and the beachfront Hive Cafe in nearby Burton Bradstock does a great seafood lunch (hivebeachcafe.co.uk). STAY: The Freshwater Beach Holiday Park in West Bay, featured in the series, has caravan short breaks from £248 for four nights at freshwaterbeach.co.uk. Jersey, the largest Channel Island, benefited hugely from the comfortable presence of John Nettles. He battled the criminal element from his open-top sports car while enjoying the French-influenced lifestyle and gastronomy. Downtown St Helier and the coastal scenery at Brelade headland played their part. DO: You may not be able to rent a car like Jim’s, but Jersey Bus runs vintage open-topped bus tours (jerseybustours.com). STAY: The Old Court House inn, with its breakfast buffet in the former judges’ chamber, was the Royal Barge Hotel in the series. Refurbishment has given it a contemporary, New England feel. Doubles from £90 at oldcourthousejersey.com. After Bergerac, Nettles moved onshore to bring his reassuring presence to the quintessentially English Thames Valley. It was the tranquil home of church fetes and wealthy widows, with its savage underworld of ritual murders.
Today Neil Dudgeon still works a beat that sees the riverside town of Wallingford play the part of Midsomer Norton. There are other locations all over leafy Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire (visitmidsomer.com). DO: Walk the Ridgeway, the ancient drovers’ trail that runs beside the Thames between Goring and Streatley and then across country towards Watlington (nationaltrail.co.uk). STAY: The palatial riverside Greenlands business school – the show’s Belvoir Hotel – hosts Midsomer weekends. Doubles £195 for two nights, B&B, henleyconferences.co.uk/midsomer. Jack Shepherd’s gloomy detective mirrors the moodiness of the storylines in a series that tangled with Cornish issues – decline in the fishing industry, tin mining, prejudice against new age travellers – more than selling the destination. But Wycliffe’s beat covered gorgeous places as diverse as Padstow, Newquay and wild Bodmin Moor. DO: Padstow is the heart of Rick Stein’s seafood empire, with restaurants and accommodation (rickstein.com). Newquay is surfie country, with OneO of the longest-lasting detective dynasties startedst with John Thaw’s Morse, handed over to KevinKe Whately’s Lewis and is just finishing off withw prequel Endeavour, starring Shaun Evans.
It has thrived on its Oxford backdrop, the old un university proving fertile ground for storylines th that require donnish intellect and some rigorous po policework. DO:D Fans will enjoy the Morse walking tour (e (experienceoxfordshire.org) plus the riverside Tr Trout Inn, where Morse and Lewis would in inevitably share final words of wisdom over a well-earned pint (thetroutoxford.co.uk). STAY:ST Oxford’s five-star Macdonald Randolph