Places to visit on a romantic break in Buckinghamshire

The Apple Orchard is a good-looking coffee and gift shop housed in a 16th-century building on West Wycombe High Street. Here, you’ll find everything from dream catchers to garden planters. You can’t ignore the cute café either, with its flatbreads stuffed with Italian staples and indulgent cream teas. Name a better combo than shopping and quaffing tea? We’ll wait…

Cliveden House in Taplow has hosted powerful personalities, iconic parties and scandalous affairs for more than 350 years. Set in 376 acres of pristine National Trust grounds you’ll find a five-star, Relais & Châteaux mansion that aces Italianate luxury. The restaurant centres its menus around locally sourced produce and, hidden by a brick-walled garden, the spa is something else – with a turquoise length of pool, inside and out.

Bekonscot Model Village & Railway is the world's original and oldest model village, showing 1930s life in miniature. Enjoy the nostalgia of the dinky railway, leafy gardens and castles. Claims to fame include multiple royal visits and being immortalised in an episode of Midsomer Murders.

Tucked away in rural greenery near Henley-on-Thames, tiny Turville is a traditional Buckinghamshire one pub, one church village. This setting and its heart-stoppingly cute cottages have starred on our screens on television shows including The Vicar of Dibley and Killing Eve. Walk along the Chiltern Way and soak up the scenery before a drink in a pub of your choice.

Romantic lighting, from glittering chandeliers to Moroccan lanterns, sets the tone at The Crazy Bear in Beaconsfield. This eccentric-luxe hotel is also over-the-top sexy with drapes, padded bed heads and ceilings in richly coloured leathers (yes, really), velvets and silks. The decadence extends to five places to eat or drink, including a Thai restaurant dishing up prawns served in pineapples and miso-marinated black cod.

Restored to working order by the Chiltern Society, Lacey Green Windmill is England's oldest surviving smock mill, with wooden machinery dating from around 1650. It’s set in the Chiltern-Hill village of the same name, also home to traditional country pubs, where you can stay steeped in history while cosying up.

Hidden by trees, Cymbeline's Castle is the remains of a small but perfectly formed medieval motte and bailey castle (also referred to as Bellinus's Castle) near Great Kimble. It’s incredibly well preserved and a good place for a stroll among the Chilterns greenery, if you’re looking for relaxing things to do on your romantic escape.

Stop for lunch at The Chiltern Brewery, housed in a converted barn with level access, just outside Wendover. Browse the range of traditionally brewed ales and wines – including gluten-free products – tasting as you go, if you’re not driving. Then tuck into a lunch at the nearby historic King’s Head – also part of the brewery – on hearty ale-infused dishes such as steak and ale pie.

With romantic turrets and spires, Waddesdon Manor is a French Renaissance-style château built to impress Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild’s friends. The immaculate gardens are charming  – walking around the estate is a pleasure.

Languid lakes, lush trees, winding paths and temples are just a few delights in store at Stowe Gardens. This Georgian landscaped garden and park was created by some of the country's most prominent 18th-century landscape gardeners, such as Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. Each time you come, you’ll find something new to love.