The Sidmouth area is a coastal wonderland, perfect for stretching your legs during a walking break.
The Victoria Hotel is situated in the heart of Devon, making us the perfect place to stay for those looking for a walking paradise. Where else can you walk along 630 miles of such a beautiful shoreline that constitutes the UK’s longest National Trail? The heritage, wildlife, geology and scenery along the way are truly inspirational and walking it brings stunning new experiences.
Here are some walks from The Victoria Hotel, produced in partnership with the South West Coast Path Association.
Salcombe Hill Walk
5.5 miles (8.9km) - Moderate
From Salcombe Hill, high above Sidmouth, you drop through woodland to the path running along beside the River Sid to the seafront, where a shingle ridge provides a buffer zone between the sea and the town. The Alma Bridge, with its nineteenth-century origins, leads to the cliff-path zigzagging up the hill, above the towering red cliffs, to bring you up to a viewpoint with breathtaking views out over Lyme Bay and the famous cliffs of the Jurassic Coast. Footpaths are through woods and fields, tarmac paths, quiet roads. Some steep ascent and descent.
Mutter's Moor & Peak Hill Walk
4.6 miles (7.3km) - Moderate
A walk through prehistory, following ancient tracks through an area thought to be densely populated in the Stone Age. There are breathtaking views in every direction, and an abundance of wildlife in the colourful heathland. Children will love the freedom of the open space, as well as the tales of smugglers and cavemen. A good walk for autumn, when birds raid the bushes for berries and the heath is bright with heather and gorse. This walk has stony/grassy tracks and paths, minimal ascent and descent.
Mutter's Moor & the Lower Otter Valley Walk
8.1 miles (13km) - Challenging
A strenuous but rewarding walk through 185 million years of geological history, displayed in the towering red cliff at High Peak, and more than five thousand years of human history. Stone tools have been found here from the Stone Age, and there are the remains of an Iron Age hillfort up on the summit of High Peak, where there are tremendous views out over a landscape whose patterns of fields, strips and ancient trackways tell their own tale of agricultural methods over the centuries. A good walk in the springtime, when songbirds perch among the bright gorse flowers and colonies of rowdy seabirds nest on the red cliffs to the east of the estuary. Migrant waders join the terns and sand martins around the shoreline, and on the exposed hillsides above the bushes are clad in tumbling blossom. The walk has footpaths, tracks and quiet country roads. Some steep ascent and descent, particularly at the start and end of the walk.
