Small wonders

chosen Polperro because of its car-free initiative – if you don’t want to walk down from the car parks, you can travel into the village by tram, which are actually converted milk floats.

Polperro’s narrow lanes of tightly packed fishermen’s houses were not made for vehicle traffic. This is a place of legendary storms and smuggling tales. Browsing through boutique-lined lanes you might be lucky enough to hear its fisherman’s choir in rehearsal. Richard and Judy, of TV fame, have a home here. STAY: Terrills is a fisherman’s cottage that sleeps five, right on the harbourside. It costs from £472 for a week, see toadhallcottages.co.uk.

Sweet Thames Goring on Thames, Berkshire

Thames-side village, with its mid-stream river island, has long been a crossing point, as well as a resting place, for boats.

It is where the river wiggles through the Goring Gap between the wooded Chilterns and the Wessex Downs, and where the Ridgeway long-distance trail crosses the Thames Path.

At the riverside it is prettiness personified – imagine restaurants with terraces and magnificent houses with sweeping lawns, frowning oaks and weeping willows.

In the village it is a pleasing mix of flint, brick and thatch.

Oh, and George Michael lived here. STAY: The beautiful 18th century Miller of Mansfield is slap bang in the heart of Goring. Doubles cost from £89 B&B, see millerofmansfield.com.