An otherworldly beauty in the Azores

The volcanic island of São Miguel featured in the “gripping” 2023 Netflix drama “Turn of the Tide”, about the crime wave that swept through it after half a tonne of cocaine washed up on its shore in 2001. These days, however, it feels entirely peaceful, said Christina Lamb in The Sunday Times, “like a forgotten world, a place where time runs more slowly”.

The largest of Portugal’s nine Azores islands, about 900 miles west of Lisbon, it makes for a superb escape from the UK – radically different (especially in its “dazzling” lushness) but easy to reach, with direct flights from Heathrow. I stayed at two lovely Octant hotels, in Ponta Delgada and “enchanting” Furnas, and enjoyed bathing in hot springs (of which São Miguel has the highest concentration in Europe), a whale- watching trip, and a visit to Parque Terra Nostra, a “sublime” botanical garden.

An unsung town in the Italian Alps

Set in Trentino’s mountainous Lagarina Valley, an hour north of Verona, the “compact” town of Rovereto (pop. 40,000) receives relatively few tourists. But it’s a “deeply atmospheric” place, said Ben Machell in The Times, with an elegant medieval centre dominated by “an almost geological slab” of a fortress.

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This pentagonal castle now houses an excellent war museum, focused on the “horrendous” mountain battles fought in the First World War. The town’s other striking sights include the Casa d’Arte Futurista Depero, home of the futurist Fortunato Depero: a “vivid Technicolor dream” full of his “playful” art, furniture and toys. Then there is the Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea – one of Italy’s biggest modern art museums. It feels a bit like stumbling upon Tate Modern in Skipton.

Autumn in the Lincolnshire Wolds

With its low, wooded hills, thatched cottages, cosy pubs and gentle walking trails, the Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape makes for a lovely “autumnal mini break”, said Phoebe Taplin in The Guardian.

On its southern border, 20 miles east of Lincoln, sits the market town of Horncastle, “a perfect base for exploring the area”, with “handsome” brick houses, good cafés, and lots of antique shops. Don’t miss the pretty village of Woodhall Spa, nearby, which became popular in the Victorian era after industrialists digging for coal chanced on a mineral-rich spring.

From Hagworthingham, five miles east of Horncastle, you can walk a beautiful six-mile loop of “undulating lanes and footpaths” that takes in Bag Enderby (where St Margaret’s Church has an intricately carved 15th-century font) and “tiny” Somersby, where Alfred, Lord Tennyson spent his childhood and youth.