If you have 1 night and £££ = The Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa, Bath
So it’s Saturday and you want to do something fancy – how about afternoon tea with a large slice of culture?
CHECK-IN
Check-in isn’t until 2pm, so put on your walking shoes and take a wander round Bath. Pop into the Charlotte Brunswick Chocolate shop on Church Street and buy a box of Bath Bun Truffles for after dinner. Once back, it’s check-in time. Rooms in the main house are ravishingly grand with antiques and views over the Crescent or the hotel’s gardens, and if romance (read: coitus) is on your mind, a Deluxe Suite with a fourposter bed is what you’re after. More a gourmand who wants to stagger no more than 10ft from the hotel’s fine-dining restaurant? Then go for a Master Room in The Coach House.
GET BUSY
The pool can get busy on a Saturday afternoon, so book a decadent 90-minute massage at the spa after lunch, before settling into the sauna and pool at around 5pm. You’ll want dinner around 8pm, so head into Bath for a cocktail or two (it’s a five-minute walk down the hill). We fell in love with The Chequers at 50 Rivers Street. Dinner is the main event here, and back at the Royal Crescent, the tasting menu would be rude to ignore. It will go on into the early hours, but that’s kind of the point as you only have to trip upstairs to bed.
CHECK-OUT
Save yourself for afternoon tea – it’s basically a religion at this place. Go for The Elizabeth Montagu, and gorge on cinnamon butter, Bath buns and lamb koftas. Take the leftovers home, then dig in smugly as those eating National Rail’s finest sandwiches look on, salivating.
Rooms from £295, Royalcrescent.co.uk. Advance train tickets from London Paddington, from £20 return