Welcome to our annual 52 Best Weekends Away issue. It marks the start of a new year by suggesting mostly easy and, I hope, universally imaginative options to fill every single weekend – I’d love to think that one year someone out there will try all 52! This time around we whisk you between quick breaks on themes as diverse as urban life swaps (p54), learning with kids (p58), night adventures (p72) and Britain’s most intriguing self-catering stays (p94). Our big features pause for a deeper dive into experiences like stepping in the historic footsteps of Paris’s bon vivants and intellectuals, aka the flâneurs (p40), meeting the Carnival float builders of Malta (p60), and tasting the bountiful produce of the North Zealand region of Denmark – rasberry muffins and spruce-flavoured schnapps included (p78). My contribution to this issue included reporting from a 500-year-old thatched cottage rescued by the Landmark Trust (p96). Tucked in a valley along the Devonshire stretch of the Jurassic Coast, it had a total absence of mobile phone signal and wi-fi, forcing this Instagram addict into a pure digital detox. I still snapped a few pics along the way – spot the cameo appearance from my daughter, if not from the ghostly monk also rumoured to stay there.
@peter_grunert