Take the ferry across to East Portlemouth and the sand bars

Walk the subtropical garden at Overbeck's above the estuary

Walk the coast path out towards Bolt Head

Take a boat or paddleboard up the estuary towards Kingsbridge

Salcombe sits inside the mouth of the Kingsbridge estuary, a ria with no real river at its head, sheltered enough for the subtropical garden at Overbeck's to grow above the water. The sandy creeks on the east shore are reached by the passenger ferry, and Bolt Head and the cliffs run out to the west.

Salcombe and the Kingsbridge Estuary

The South Hams

Plymouth

Five nights in a loop from Plymouth: the sea tractor to Burgh Island, Salcombe's estuary and Dartmouth Castle in the South Hams, then High Willhays and Wistman's Wood on Dartmoor.

Dartmoor and the South Hams from Plymouth

Dartmouth and the South Hams

From the South Hams to Exmoor: Dartmouth Castle and Burgh Island's sea tractor, the high moor and stone rows of Dartmoor, the surf beaches of north Devon, then Lynmouth's water-powered railway and Dunkery Beacon.

Devon: Dartmoor, the South Hams and Exmoor

Walk across the sand bar to Burgh Island at low tide

Ride the sea tractor back when the tide covers the bar

Walk up to the ruined huer's hut on the island's summit

Have a drink at the Pilchard Inn on the island

Burgh Island lies a few hundred metres off Bigbury-on-Sea and is cut off at high tide; when the sand goes under, a sea tractor on tall wheels carries people across the water. The Art Deco hotel on the island drew Agatha Christie, who used the place in And Then There Were None and Evil Under the Sun, and the Pilchard Inn on the island has parts dating from the 14th century.

Burgh Island and Bigbury: The Sea Tractor

Stand at the Sherman tank memorial at Torcross

Walk the shingle bar between the sea and Slapton Ley

Look for wildfowl on the freshwater ley behind the beach

Find the obelisk the US Army gave to the evacuated villages

Slapton Sands is a shingle bar with Slapton Ley behind it, the largest natural freshwater lake in south-west England and a national nature reserve. In 1943 the whole area was evacuated so American troops could rehearse the Normandy landings here, and during Exercise Tiger in April 1944 German E-boats attacked a convoy preparing for the landings, killing at least 749 American servicemen. A Sherman tank recovered from the sea stands at Torcross as their memorial.

Slapton Sands: The Rehearsal for D-Day That Went Wrong

Walk the gun platforms of Dartmouth Castle above the harbour mouth

Find where the harbour chain was anchored

Cross on the ferry and ride the steam train from Kingswear

Walk the Embankment and the Butterwalk in the town

In 1388 Richard II authorised John Hawley, mayor of Dartmouth and privateer, to raise money for a fortalice by the sea. By the end of the 15th century it had an artillery tower and an iron chain that could be winched across the harbour mouth to a tower at Godmerock — the oldest known purpose-built coast artillery fort in Britain. Steam trains run along the far bank from Kingswear to Paignton, and the higher and lower ferries still cross the Dart.

Dartmouth: Britain's Oldest Known Coast Artillery Fort and the Steam Railway

Climb the keep of Totnes Castle on its Norman motte

Walk the Butterwalk and the Elizabethan high street

Walk into the roofless mansion at Berry Pomeroy Castle

Walk the riverside path along the Dart from Totnes

Totnes climbs from the Dart to a Norman motte-and-bailey castle, built for Juhel of Totnes in William I's reign, and its main street has the covered Butterwalk and the East Gate arch, rebuilt after a fire in 1990. Two and a half miles east, Berry Pomeroy is a Tudor mansion inside the walls of an earlier castle, sold to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, in 1547, abandoned in the late 17th century and famous since the 19th both as a picturesque ruin and as a haunted one.

Totnes and Berry Pomeroy: A Norman Motte and a Haunted Shell

Walk the abbey church the monks built themselves

See Dom Charles Norris's 1968 slab-glass window in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel

Walk the lavender, sensory and physic gardens

Book a honeybee experience day or a beekeeping course at the abbey apiary, where Brother Adam bred his bees

Benedictines returned to the ruined site at Buckfast in 1882 and rebuilt the abbey church between 1907 and 1938 on the medieval foundations, mostly with their own hands — four monks at a time, one of them a trained mason, working with a horse and a winch. The community still makes tonic wine and keeps bees, and Brother Adam's bee breeding here was known worldwide.

Buckfast Abbey: A Church Built by a Handful of Monks

See Smeaton's Tower, the upper part of the third Eddystone lighthouse, on the Hoe

Stand at the Mayflower Steps on the Barbican, near where the Pilgrims left in 1620

Walk the Hoe promenade below the walls of the Royal Citadel

Take the boat trip round the naval dockyard from the Barbican

Smeaton's Tower, the upper part of the third Eddystone lighthouse, stood on its rock from 1759 until 1882, when it was taken down and rebuilt on Plymouth Hoe as a memorial to its engineer, John Smeaton — a major step forward in lighthouse design. Below the Hoe, the Barbican keeps its Elizabethan streets, and the Mayflower Steps commemorate the Pilgrims' departure nearby in 1620.