Somerset Luxury Itinerary: The Perfect 7-Day Guide

Somerset is the only county in England where you can eat breakfast made from ingredients grown within half a mile of your table, soak in naturally warm thermal waters that Romans considered sacred, walk across the mythological heart of Arthurian legend before lunch, and be back at your villa in time for a glass of something excellent from a vineyard you passed on the way. It is not flashy about any of this. That is, in fact, the whole point.

For the discerning traveller who has grown tired of destinations that perform their own greatness, Somerset offers something rarer: a place so genuinely, quietly extraordinary that it barely bothers to explain itself. The Levels shimmer in morning mist. The Mendips roll with an unhurried authority. Glastonbury Tor rises out of flat farmland like a thought that got away from itself. And behind almost every hedge, someone is making cheese, cider, wine, or bread that would shame most of Europe.

This Somerset luxury itinerary is designed for seven days, though you will almost certainly start negotiating with yourself about staying longer by around day three. It covers the county’s greatest hits alongside places most visitors never find, and it is built around the principle that luxury travel is not about spending the most – it is about experiencing the best. In Somerset, those two things are only occasionally the same.

For the broader context of what this county offers, our full Somerset Travel Guide is the place to start before you pack a single bag.

Day 1: Arrival and the Art of Settling In – Wells and the Mendip Hills

Theme: First Impressions and Cathedral Cities

There is a strong argument that Wells is the most underestimated city in England. It is also, technically, the smallest – which means you can walk its entire medieval centre in forty minutes and still feel like you have discovered something most people have missed. Begin here. Let Wells do its quiet, confident work on you before the rest of the county gets its turn.

Morning: Arrive and check into your villa – ideally positioned in the Mendip Hills or the countryside surrounding Wells to give you immediate access to both the city and the upland walking country above it. Once unpacked, walk directly to Wells Cathedral. Do not treat this as a dutiful cultural tick. The West Front, with its extraordinary medieval sculpture programme, is one of the finest pieces of decorative stonework in Europe, and the Chapter House staircase, worn smooth by centuries of feet, stops people in their tracks daily. The scissor arches inside are a feat of medieval engineering so elegant they look accidental. They were not.

Afternoon: Lunch at a quality local restaurant in the market square, then walk the moated Bishop’s Palace gardens – the swans famously ring the gatehouse bell when they want feeding, a piece of medieval theatre that has been running for centuries and shows no signs of closing. Spend the rest of the afternoon driving up onto the Mendip plateau. Cheddar Gorge is close and earns its reputation; arrive late afternoon when the day-trip coaches have gone and the light drops into the limestone walls at an angle that turns them amber and gold. The George Inn at Cheddar village is a good stop for a restorative drink before the drive back.

Evening: Dinner at your villa or at a high-quality local restaurant – Wells has several worth booking ahead. Early night. You have six more days to fill and the county is larger than it looks on a map.

Practical note: Wells Cathedral is free to enter, though donations are welcomed. Bishop’s Palace charges a modest admission fee. Cheddar Gorge car parks close at specific times – check ahead.

Day 2: The Waters – Bath and Its Thermal World

Theme: Bathing, Roman History and Georgian Grandeur

Bath sits just inside Somerset’s northern boundary with such confidence that it has never felt the need to be anything other than exactly itself. It is one of the few British cities that does not require imagination to see how extraordinary it once was. The Georgian architecture is intact. The Roman Baths are still there, in the ground, exactly where they were left. The thermal water is still warm. The city has had roughly two thousand years of practice at receiving visitors graciously, and it shows.

Morning: Drive to Bath and spend the first part of the morning at the Roman Baths. Book in advance – queues at the door are for people who did not read this article. The audio guide narrated by Bill Bryson (yes, that one) is genuinely excellent and manages to make archaeology feel urgent. Afterwards, take the short walk to the Pump Room for morning coffee. The Pump Room is everything a certain type of Regency-era social ritual promised: high ceilings, a string trio, and the option to taste the actual thermal water from the fountain. It tastes of minerals and ambition and the 18th century. Most people decline a second glass.

Afternoon: Lunch in Bath – the city has a strong restaurant scene, with options ranging from relaxed bistros to serious fine dining, all worth researching and booking well ahead. After lunch, make time for the Fashion Museum in the Assembly Rooms, which contains one of the world’s finest collections of historic dress and is perpetually less crowded than it deserves to be. Then give yourself an hour on the Royal Crescent and the Circus – not inside anything, simply walking the streets, looking up, and understanding what extraordinary civic confidence in stone actually looks like.

Evening: The Thermae Bath Spa is the centrepiece of this evening. Book the rooftop pool session for early evening – the experience of floating in naturally warm thermal water as the Georgian roofline goes gold in the setting sun is one of those things that is, frankly, hard to describe without sounding like a brochure. You can try the ground floor pools first, but the rooftop is why you are here. Dinner afterwards in Bath, then the drive home through quiet Somerset lanes.

Practical note: Thermae Bath Spa is very popular – book weeks ahead, especially for weekend evenings. Arrive in Bath by 9am if you want to beat the main visitor crowds at the Roman Baths.

Day 3: Myth and Mystery – Glastonbury and the Somerset Levels

Theme: Ancient Landscape and Legend

Glastonbury is one of those places that means entirely different things to entirely different people, sometimes to the same person on the same day. There is the festival, of course, which transforms several thousand acres of Somerset farmland into a temporary city every summer. There is the mythology – Arthur, Guinevere, the Holy Grail, the first Christian church in Britain. And there is the town itself, which has leaned so hard into its spiritual reputation that you can buy a crystal for any occasion and be told your aura is doing well. It is rather endearing once you settle into it.

Morning: Drive to Glastonbury and begin with the Tor. The walk to the top takes around twenty minutes from the nearest car park and is steep enough to feel earned. The tower of St Michael’s church stands at the summit – a roofless ruin with enormous presence – and the view over the Somerset Levels on a clear morning is one of the most affecting things in the county. The flatness of the Levels stretching away in every direction, the silver threads of drainage rhynes catching light, the thin line of the sea somewhere west – it does something to perspective. Take your time up here.

Afternoon: Come down and spend time at Glastonbury Abbey, where the alleged graves of Arthur and Guinevere were “discovered” in the 12th century in circumstances that most historians now regard with polite scepticism. The ruins are extensive and genuinely beautiful regardless of your position on the Arthurian question. Lunch in the town at one of several decent café-restaurants, then drive out across the Levels. Stop at Burrow Mump, a smaller hill topped by another ruined church, where the view rivals the Tor with only a fraction of the climb. The Levels are a landscape that rewards slow attention – the light here changes constantly, the birds are extraordinary (this is serious wetland wildlife country), and the sense of ancient water-country is palpable in every direction.

Evening: The Levels at dusk are something else entirely. If your villa is positioned near here, an evening drive or walk as the light fails and the starlings begin to murmur is worth every minute. Dinner back at the villa with local produce – Somerset’s larder at this point should be getting properly serious attention.

Day 4: Coast and Cliffs – Exmoor and the Bristol Channel

Theme: Wild Landscape, Sea Air and Exmoor National Park

Exmoor is not a national park that shouts about itself. It is upland, heather-covered, rain-visited and dramatic in the specific way that British moorland is dramatic – which is to say quietly, persistently, and more impressively the longer you stay in it. The coast here, where the moor drops directly into the Bristol Channel in some of the highest sea cliffs in England, is a genuinely jaw-dropping landscape. This is not often on the tourist circuit of people doing Somerset in a week. It should be.

Morning: Drive west to Porlock and begin on the coast path. The section between Porlock Weir and Lynmouth (into Devon, technically, but no one is checking) passes through ancient sessile oak woodland and over clifftops with views across to Wales on clear days. Porlock Weir itself – a tiny working harbour with a pebble beach and a very good café – is the kind of place that makes you understand why some people simply stop moving and stay forever. Walk as much or as little of the coast path as suits your ambition, then loop inland through Selworthy for the view across Exmoor from the churchyard.

Afternoon: Drive across the moor to Dunster, where a perfectly preserved medieval village sits beneath a castle that has been occupied almost continuously for nine hundred years. Dunster Castle (National Trust) is one of Somerset’s finest interiors – the plasterwork ceilings and carved staircase in the formal rooms are quite remarkable. Lunch in Dunster village, which has good pub options and a mill that still works. Spend the late afternoon on the open moor if the weather is kind – wild red deer are a genuine possibility, particularly towards evening.

Evening: A remote village pub on Exmoor for dinner – the kind of place with a wood fire, local venison on the menu, and cider made within ten miles. They exist throughout Exmoor and they are one of the county’s unambiguous pleasures. Book ahead; these places are small.

Day 5: Food, Farms and Fermentation – The Taunton Vale

Theme: Gastronomy, Artisan Producers and the Somerset Table

No serious engagement with Somerset can skip its food culture – which is not a scene in the metropolitan sense of that word, but something older and more grounded. This is the county that gave England Cheddar cheese, that produces some of its finest cider (not the sweet fizzy variety – proper farmhouse stuff, dry and serious and occasionally alarming), and that has quietly built a network of artisan producers, farm shops and destination restaurants that would embarrass much flashier food regions.

Morning: Visit a working farm shop in the Taunton area – Somerset is rich with them, and the best operate with a rigour and quality that would satisfy any serious cook. Pick up cheese, charcuterie, smoked fish from the Somerset coast, sourdough, and anything else that calls to you. Then head to a local cider producer for a proper tasting. Somerset cider at the serious end – farmhouse, single variety, occasionally barrel-aged – is a revelation to anyone who thinks they know what cider is. Most producers welcome visitors; call ahead to arrange.

Afternoon: Taunton itself rewards a few hours – the county town has more depth than many visitors give it credit for, with the Somerset Museum housing an excellent collection that tells the county’s story from the Mesolithic onwards. The castle ruins are substantial. For lunch, seek out one of the area’s destination restaurants: the food scene around Taunton, Frome and the broader county has seen serious investment in recent years, and there are chefs here doing work that deserves considerably more national attention than it receives.

Evening: A long dinner at one of Somerset’s finest restaurant tables. The county has multiple establishments with serious culinary ambition – research and book well in advance, particularly for weekends. After the morning’s foraging, you may also choose to cook at the villa: in which case, bring everything you bought from the farm shop and treat the kitchen as the destination. This is one of the genuine privileges of villa travel. Restaurants are wonderful. Cooking exactly what you want in your own space is sometimes better.

Day 6: Gardens, Country Houses and the Quiet Interior

Theme: Architecture, Horticulture and the Somerset Country House Tradition

Somerset has been growing gardens and building houses of consequence for a very long time, and the result is a county interior thick with estates, walled gardens, and houses that range from the grandly formal to the charmingly eccentric. Today is for a slower pace – a day that moves through great gardens and beautiful buildings without urgency, with time built in for the kind of extended lunch that afternoons in England were, at some point, designed for.

Morning: Montacute House, a National Trust Elizabethan mansion near Yeovil, is among the finest houses in the south-west. The Long Gallery on the top floor – 170 feet of original Elizabethan interior – houses a remarkable collection of Tudor and Jacobean portraits on loan from the National Portrait Gallery. The gardens are formal and beautifully maintained, with two walled courts and excellent herbaceous planting. Arrive when it opens to have the house to yourself for the first hour. (The first hour before crowds arrive is the best hour in any great country house. Protect it.)

Afternoon: Lunch at a local restaurant or pub near Yeovil or Sherborne (just into Dorset, but close enough), then drive north to East Lambrook Manor Gardens near South Petherton – one of the most influential cottage gardens in England, created by plantswoman Margery Fish and still maintained with exceptional care. The planting is abundant, layered and very beautiful in the English horticultural tradition. For garden lovers, this alone is worth the journey from London. After East Lambrook, the Lytes Cary Manor nearby is a more intimate National Trust property with medieval hall and charming topiary garden that rewards an hour’s quiet exploration.

Evening: Back to the villa. A long bath, a glass of the local wine you bought earlier in the week (Somerset’s emerging vineyards are producing genuinely good sparkling wine), and dinner at home. You have earned an unscheduled evening.

Day 7: Frome, Final Discoveries and a Proper Goodbye

Theme: Independent Culture, Final Meals and the Art of Leaving Well

Frome – pronounced “Froom”, since the county takes a relaxed approach to spelling consistency – has become one of the most interesting small towns in England over the last decade. It is genuinely independent, full of makers, bakers, artists and people who moved from cities and stayed. Its hill streets are cobbled and lined with independent shops of real quality. It has a food market that runs on Saturdays and is seriously good. It is, in short, a fine place in which to spend your final day – and a reminder that Somerset’s pleasures do not require impressive ruins or Roman heritage to make themselves felt.

Morning: Saturday in Frome means the market. Go early. The producers here are excellent – cheese, bread, local charcuterie, flowers, preserves, street food – and the atmosphere is genuinely convivial rather than performatively artisan. Walk Cheap Street (the steep cobbled lane running down through the town centre), explore the independent bookshops, galleries and boutiques of Catherine Hill, and take coffee somewhere good. Frome has cafés that would thrive in any European city. It just happens to be in Somerset, which means the coffee is also made by someone who knows all the farmers in the area personally.

Afternoon: If time allows, a drive south to Stourhead (technically Wiltshire, but close and unmissable) for the most celebrated landscape garden in England – the Pantheon reflected in the lake, the temples positioned with Claudian precision, the beech woods turning in autumn or blazing green in spring. Alternatively, spend the afternoon back in the Mendips on a final walk, or simply return to Wells and sit in the Cathedral Close with nothing particular to do. That is, after all, what Somerset does best: make you feel that there is nowhere you urgently need to be.

Evening: A final dinner that takes full account of everything you have eaten and drunk this week. By now you will have opinions about Somerset cider, views on the cheese selection at your local farm shop, and probably a nascent plan to return. Act on that plan. A week in Somerset is enough to fall for it; it is not, as you will discover, enough to see it properly.

Making This Itinerary Your Own

The structure above is a framework, not a contract. Somerset rewards the spontaneous detour – the unmarked lane that turns out to lead to a viewpoint, the village pub that turns out to be exceptional, the farm gate sign for fresh eggs that turns into a twenty-minute conversation about the history of the valley. Leave room for these things. The best travel is always partly unplanned, and Somerset is a county that rewards curiosity with extraordinary frequency.

A few practical notes worth carrying into the week: many of Somerset’s best restaurants require advance booking, especially at weekends and during peak season – do not leave this to chance. National Trust properties are worth joining for on a visit of this length; you will visit at least three or four, and membership pays for itself quickly. The county’s lanes are narrow and the navigation apps do not always appreciate the difference between a road and a farm track. Drive slowly, give way generously, and remember that the tractor has been here longer than your rental car.

Whether you come for the landscape, the food, the history, the walking, or simply the desire to be somewhere that has not noticed it is supposed to be trying harder, Somerset will meet you where you are. It is a county that has had several thousand years of people arriving, being surprised, and not quite being able to explain to anyone else exactly why it was so good. Consider yourself warned.

Base Yourself in a Luxury Villa in Somerset

The difference between staying in a hotel and staying in a luxury villa in Somerset is, in this county, more significant than almost anywhere else in England. Somerset’s pleasures are domestic in the best sense – local produce, open fires, long evenings, the particular quiet of rural England at night. A villa gives you all of that, plus the kitchen to cook in, the garden to eat in, the space to spread out after a long day on the Mendips or Exmoor, and the freedom to operate on your own timetable rather than a hotel restaurant’s. Excellence Luxury Villas curates a collection of properties across Somerset that match the quality of everything else this week has offered. Browse the full collection and find your base for the perfect Somerset itinerary.