Over the weekend we were lucky enough to visit Salcombe, which is in Devon on the Southwest Coast of England. With the baby's due date quickly approaching, we thought it would be fun to get away and relax this weekend. After a little time on Google, I read that Salcombe was like the Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard of England, another website described "a town out of a Ralph Lauren ad"- I was instantly sold.
We boarded the train at Paddington Station and got off three hours later in Totnes. I would HIGHLY recommend upgrading to First Class. It is £20 more per ticket, but was so worth it. We had regular tickets on the way there and it was crazy: kids, dogs, food- people were even drinking and partying on the 9am train. Maybe it was a fluke, but we upgraded on the way back, and it was much more civilized. We booked
Totally Taxis to pick us up at the Totnes Rail Station and the ride into town is about 40 minutes.
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| The Devon Hills. You can see these beautiful rolling hills all along the train line and on the drive into town. |
Upon arriving in Salcombe we were in awe; the landscape is incredible with fields that literally roll right into the coast. The mixture of the seaside and farmland was stunning.
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| The stunning view of the harbor. |
We stayed at the
Salcombe Harbour Hotel which was beautiful- newly opened this year and truly 5 star, the vibe was surfer chic and we loved it. Our room fit the "Ralph Lauren" description of the town and had a beautiful view of the water. There are even complementary bottles of sherry and gin in each room- something I couldn't enjoy but my husband loved!
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| Talk about room with a view! This was our room and it was fab!! |
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| Lovely neutral scheme with a very "East Coast" Vibe- totally my style!! |
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| Complementary sherry and gin in each room. And at 6pm room service stops by each room with ice and lemons. |
On our first day we had lunch at
Dick and Wills, where we sat outside, took in the view and enjoyed the sunshine. After lunch we planned on taking the ferry over to the beach, but ended up taking quite a long nap and missed that excursion :-)
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| The view from Dick and Wills. Who knew this was in England?! We felt like we were in the South of France. |
I was in love with our hotel and had no interest in leaving, so we ended up eating dinner there at the
Jetty Restaurant and it was delicious. The hotel is new and definitely working on a few kinks in the service (it was seemingly impossible to get drinks), but we'd read about this on TripAdvisor so we were well aware. The staff who work at the hotel are so lovely and went out of their way to make our stay enjoyable, so a few extra minutes for our drinks didn't seem like such a big deal.
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| The beautiful interiors and delicious food are both worth visiting at the Jetty Restaurant at the Salcombe Harbour Hotel. |
The highlight of our trip was definitely sailing on Sunday morning. We rented a boat through
Salcombe Dinghy Sailing, they set us up and we were off! My husband grew up sailing and loves nothing more than to be on the water- it was fun to see him in his element and it was great to see a different view of the town from the water.
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| A pink sailboat! Love, love love (my husband has informed me that in fancy sailor terms, this is in fact a pink "spinnaker" NOT a pink sailboat…i still love it). |
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Another fab view from the sailboat.
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After lunch we walked around town (there are lots of shops, restaurants and especially delicious bakeries to explore), picked up lunch to-go and then headed back to Totnes to catch the train. It was a whirlwind weekend, but lots of fun and we will definitely be back soon. If you can make it down to Salcombe I highly recommend it!
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| Beautiful seaside cottages line the streets of Salcombe. |
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| The view as you drive down through town. |
P.S. I was just on the website for the The Salcombe Harbour Hotel and saw that they are currently offering a "3 Night Break" Package from £295/Night.
Check it out here.
