Manor reborn

themed around birds, and decorated to mimic their plumage – our Gannet suite is all iridescent blues and greys, and even has a decadent outdoor bath, so you can really, ahem, get back to nature.

However, dinner is the main event.

The signature tasting menu (£140), eaten in the Berry Head dining room – named after the headland you can see from the bay window, and whose tables spiral around a black and white art deco marble floor centrepiece you can’t help but want to dance on – starts with those scallops, delicately frosted with truffle and doused in cumin-scented foam.

Despite being eight courses, portions aren’t skimpy.

You get a whole bread basket of mini-baguettes and warm split buns, served with ridiculously delicious butter.

The fillet of beef from nearby Darts Farm is sticky in the dark red wine sauce, and livened by sweet-sharp shallots and beads of velveteen celeriac puree.

Pudding is a staggeringly good white chocolate candle you blow out (wish-making, optional) – and it seems Rooms at Lympstone Manor (lympstonemanor.co.uk) are available from £305 per night (two sharing) on a bed and breakfast basis. Call 01395 202 040. For information about the area go to visitdevon.co.uk everything is full of detail and fun.

Come April, a swathe of rubbly, grassy earth out front will be planted with vines.

Producing champagne within five years is the aim.

For now, visitors must be content with a mixture of global and locally sourced plonk, from the likes of Devon’s Lily Farm and Lyme Bay Winery, a Williams Elegant gin and Fever Tree tonic on arrival (because there’s no better way to start the afternoon), and head sommelier Marko – the smiliest man alive.

During dinner he bounds up to explain each glass in the wine flight as though letting us in on a secret he has only just stumbled upon himself and needs someone else to confirm it in equal rapture.

Fortunately, he’s not in the least bit put off as we smile back, increasingly wildly, with each glass.

KRAKOW, POLAND

A weekend visit will leave you with more spending money than a trip to Berlin, and you’ll still have as much fun.

MADRID, SPAIN

Visit the Circulo de Bellas Artes’ rooftop terrace to check out the thriving city’s skyline in all its glory.

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

Still one of Europe’s most affordable cities. St Vitus Cathedral houses the tombs of St Wenceslas and Charles IV.