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Apart from many Airbnbs – which ironically never seem to serve breakfast – I’ve never actually stayed in a proper bed and breakfast before. But with coronavirus still lingering like a bad smell, we decided to book somewhere small for our seaside escape to Devon, where we knew we’d be in safe hands.
In fact, we were in extremely safe hands, as our bed and breakfast only actually had one guest room. More on that later!
Here’s a little look at our four-night stay at The Tall House in south Devon.
Book your stay at The Tall House via Booking.com.
Read more: Five places to visit in south Devon
Location
The Tall House is located in a tiny village named Harberton, just outside of popular tourist town, Totnes. We booked it for its location, as being just a ten-minute drive from the seafront, it meant we could drive to various places around the south coast throughout the week.
The village itself really is tiny. I’m not even sure if there was a shop, but the only real sign of life that we saw was the local 13th century pub – The Church House Inn – which was only open evenings between Wednesday and Saturday, and lunchtime to evening on Sundays.
If you’re after some peace and quiet, Harberton would be great place to base yourself. There are some hellish winding roads surrounding the village, but it’s worth it to switch off and embrace the quaint village life.
The only downside to The Tall House location is the lack of parking. It’s very much a daily gamble of finding a free space at the bottom of their hill or in the local pub car park, though we did always find somewhere.
The House
The house itself was absolutely gorgeous. Looking like it had been fairly recently updated, The Tall House is home to one guest room, which is on the ground floor opposite a ginormous kitchen.
The cosy deluxe double room has a marshmallow bed, small but perfectly hot shower, drinks facilities, cosy dressing gowns, hot water bottles, plenty of plants, a stunning red fireplace, shelves of books to flick through, and a gorgeous seating area that overlooked a large window with views of their little front garden and distant countryside.
It’s so quiet that you can hear nothing but birds, nearby goats and the very rare passing of a car. We had plenty of rain during our trip (is it a staycation without bad weather?), so I spent most mornings laying in bed listening to Storm Francis battering against the window.
One of the owners, Dan, actually makes furniture and some of his beautiful creations can be found in the room. Worth looking out for if you happen to stay!
The Breakfast
The most important part of a bed and breakfast stay, right? After months of making plain old porridge, toast or smoothies in lockdown – the absolute feast that we were served daily at The Tall House was out of this world.
Each day you need to fill out your cooked breakfast form, which includes all the good stuff. I pre-requested a veggie breakfast, which gave me the option of eggs, avocado, beans, Linda McCartney sausages, halloumi and pastries – or all of the above! Non-veggie is the same but of course meat instead of the vegetarian alternatives.
We went big on day one, not realising that before the cooked breakfast, you’re served an array of fresh fruit, yoghurt, granola, fresh jams for your toast and various cereals. Not forgetting the freshly squeezed juice and huge supply of tea and coffee.
To say we left Devon a little heavier is an understatement, but it was absolutely worth every calorie!
Usually you’d eat with the hosts in the kitchen, but due to the virus they had set up a table in our room and arrived with the food at whatever time we requested, which was always 9am so we could try and keep it as much of a slow travel trip as possible.
Breakfast aside, we were also greeted with hot coffee and the fluffiest home baked lemon drizzle cake. Yum!
The hosts
Judy and Dan own The Tall House and are quite possibly the nicest human beings on earth. They made us feel welcome from the moment we arrived and chatted to us every day when we saw them at breakfast.
They kept the room immaculate, gave us a key so we could come and go as we pleased and shared loads of great recommendations with us.
We can’t thank Judy and Dan enough for having us at The Tall House for our seaside staycation!
Book your stay at The Tall House via Booking.com.
Would you stay at a bed and breakfast? Let me know what you think of this one!
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