(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- “So, where are you going?” my mother-in-law asked a few weeks before my husband, Charles, and I were scheduled to leave for several days of child-free bliss. Almost two years overdue on celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary, I was still drawing a vacation blank. My mother-in-law was shocked. “You’re normally so on top of it!”
She was right. I’ve been a travel editor for more than a decade; knowing where to go is literally my job. But I’d been trapped in a paradox: The thing I needed most—rest—was incompatible with my dreams of parental freedom. After all, relaxing places like beach resorts are the default when “vacation” means 24-7 child-minding.
A solution slowly came into focus. It would be a countryside escape far enough away to incur jet lag but near restaurants that are worth staying up late for. Boring for kids, impractical for tiny bad sleepers and gloriously indulgent for us.
That’s how I arrived at the Newt, a 2,000-acre estate in Somerset, a roughly two-hour drive west of London in an area known for two things my husband and I hold dear: apple cider and cheese. It was perfect—until we realized it was also sold out for half of our dates.
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Luckily the staff at the Newt had recommendations for how to fill out our itinerary with the places they themselves love to frequent. So instead of staying in one place (relaxing!), we’d bounce among several (an adventure!). When a local friend offered to make a few reservations for us, I happily surrendered control. And yet we still hadn’t figured out our first stop until after our plane landed at Heathrow. It felt thrilling to let go and give in to serendipity.
Looking back now, I feel confident no amount of planning could have yielded a better itinerary. I wouldn’t have changed a single turn.
Windsor to BatcombeIt’s around 10 a.m. when we climb into our Mercedes A-Class rental, zonked after a sleepless overnight flight. Our first stop is Batcombe, 100 miles away, but I decide we won’t get there at all without caffeine, so I navigate us to Windsor, 10 miles down the M4.
In the king’s ancestral seat, I spot a sign for a “cakery” down a brick-walled alleyway. That’s how we find ourselves at Cup of Rosie in a Tudor house splitting an indulgent vanilla custard cake and pots of Earl Grey all served on dainty pink china. We tour Windsor Castle and the stunning St. George’s Chapel—where Harry and Meghan were married and Queen Elizabeth II is now interred—then grab-and-go flaky, sage-flecked sausage rolls for lunch from Gail’s bakery on the pedestrian-only Peascod Street.
We’re two-thirds of the way to our destination when traffic slows. But drivers aren’t rubbernecking at an accident: It’s Stonehenge, right off the A303, standing in a grassy field as it has for some 4,500 years. It’s a baffling, mesmerizing sight we’re happy to slow down for. By the time the highways morph into muddy, hedge-lined country roads, the sun is starting to dip, casting a golden hour glow onto flocks of grazing sheep.
Batcombe is a speck of a village that consists primarily of a 15th century church and a 17th century pub called the Three Horseshoes, which is where we’re staying. There’s no lobby or reception desk, just a worn wooden bar that sits under beamed ceilings. This is the favorite local pub of the Newt staff, and, like thousands of these establishments across the UK, it has a handful of rooms on the second floor. The inn opened in April 2023 after a restoration by star chef Margot Henderson. Her mince toasties and deviled pig skins are staple bar snacks; for dinner she makes a rotating array of refined British comforts such as ox cheek pie with pickled walnuts and roast goose with apple jelly.
Before arriving, I’d had visions of sloshing pints, hoppy aromas and sticky floors. In reality, it hums with what feels like the entire population of the town (scampering children included), and it’s full of warm conviviality. We’re the only non-Brits. Upstairs, we settle into an antique-filled room (from £220, or $275) with a soaking tub and views of St. Mary’s church.
It’s Pie Week, seemingly a nod to the Great British Bake Off. We order the savory duck option with buttery crisped potatoes, and it’s deserving of a “Hollywood handshake.”
Batcombe to BrutonAt breakfast we get our first taste of Somerset apple juice, famed for its tart complexity, then we borrow wellies and stroll to the region’s most awarded cheesemaker, Westcombe Dairy, for nibbles of smoked and aged cheddars. Westcombe has a striking facility with barn doors, skylights, and a small farmstand; while we chat with the staff it fills in with village locals. We leave with two shopping bags full of cider and cheese and head to Bruton, 3 miles down the road.
Compared with Batcombe, it may as well be Manhattan. The town’s charms are concentrated on the pastel-hued High Street: At one end is Bo Lee & Workman, a modern gallery in a tiny old church, where we pop in for the opening of an exhibit by British sculptor Olivia Bax. At the other end is our hotel, the colorful No. 1 Bruton (from £180).
Bruton is the hub of Somerset’s recent creative influx. The center of town has two dozen or so shops, and each is outstanding. Cabbages & Roses, a boutique from a former Vogue editor, sells floral brocade blouses and grandmacore dresses; it’s not to be confused with Rose & Lyons, a store with a curated collection of under-the-radar (read: midprice) European labels. Vegan beauty brand Commune looks poised to be the next Aesop: “We’re already stocked by private clubs in London and New York,” the shopkeeper tells me, as I browse its beautifully-bottled soaps and shampoos.
The town is also home to an outpost of the gallery Hauser & Wirth, which has beautiful grounds for strolling. But Bruton’s most masterful creations are those from chef Merlin Labron-Johnson, who cooks out of a shoebox-size kitchen at Osip.
Raised in Devon, Labron-Johnson cut his teeth as sous chef at In de Wulf, a (now-shuttered) tiny Danish countryside resort that had an outsize culinary reputation; he’s been a Michelin darling in his own right since returning to his native England in 2015. But Osip remains easy to book, even at the last minute, likely because of its still under-the-radar location. Our dinner there is a slow-roasted beet with kefir cream, hazelnuts and preserved lemon and a celeriac puree loaded up with truffles, honey and preserved egg yolk. Paired with funky wines and (more) cider, this meal alone is worth the transatlantic travel.
Bruton to BathThe next morning, we drive the 27 miles to Bath, which has lovely Georgian architecture that survived World War II unscathed. We skip the abbey and thermal springs and beeline to Beckford Canteen for Sunday lunch.
The restaurant feels like a greenhouse, with sun pouring through walls of windows. After a delectable parade of roast beef and Yorkshire puddings and cauliflower smothered in cheese sauce, we let our server twist our arm for a “cheeky teaspoon” of rhubarb sorbet.
Bath to Castle CaryAll this has been the prelude for the hotel stay we’d originally angled for: two nights at the Newt. The 17th century estate is a hive of activity; all the rooms are booked, and there are plenty of day visitors, too. We stroll through a sprawling deer park where several species roam free. We take in tastings at a cider barn and skip the beekeeping master classes.
At the heart of it all is an egg-shaped garden filled with hundreds of gnarled vines trained into spirals and crosshatches. It includes one tree for every known heirloom apple variety grown in England.
My room to the spaThe Newt is a place to indulge a bit and slow down a lot. (The rooms start at around £625—not terribly extravagant for a hotel on the World’s 50 Best list.) You have to embrace the British penchant for walking to get around; I meander some 20 minutes through apple orchards before I reach the spa, which is housed in a standalone brick edifice—a former outbuilding that was part of the estate’s working farm—and has a knockout indoor-outdoor pool. True to its name, the “relaxing” massage delivers; the therapist released a knot in my neck I’d settled on living with. Charles also takes a long walk but to a painstakingly restored Roman villa-turned-museum—he’s still talking about it.
We retreat at night to a room in the Farmyard section of the hotel, a mix of old and new structures. Ours, built on the site of a dairy, is called the Cheese Barn. Modern in style, it has a bathroom larger than the East Village one-bedroom I once considered palatial. It even has its own steam room.
Castle Cary to HeathrowAs we check out of the Newt, I can’t quite bear the notion of airport dining. So for one last impromptu hurrah, we set the GPS not to Heathrow but to Heckfield Place. The luxe hotel is located conveniently on the outskirts of London, about 80 miles from the Newt and 35 miles short of the airport, and its main restaurant, Marle, has last-minute availability. We roll in for veal tortellini en brodo and braised beef cheeks with wild garlic—all technically precise and delicate.
As the GPS points us east to Heathrow, I feel a certain satisfaction knowing I don’t have any more decisions to wing and gratitude for how miraculously it all fell into place. It’s odd, but I realize I have my kids to thank. I was never much good at ceding control until they came along, anyway.
(Adds information about Osip in 17th paragraph, corrects spelling of name in 8th paragraph)
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