We’ve been to Flanders a lot this year, but that’s because there’s a lot to see. Anita Pati went there and developed a soft spot for a local fromage, sampled some rather strong beer and discovered the dubious delights of cheese on meat.

A unique blend of country chic and contemporary design, Brompton Cookery School is the first of its kind on a National Trust property and offers fledging cooks a genuine opportunity to reconnect the food they prepare to the land from whence it came. Caroline Sargent puts on her pinny and goes back to the classroom.

Cedar Falls is one of the most refreshing places I have been to in a long while – figuratively speaking as much as anything else. A beautiful Georgian Manor House in the pretty village of Bishop’s Lydeard in Somerset, it’s a spa-and-stay kind of affair (although day guests are welcome too) with a very exciting and ambitious young chef to boot

Unashamedly squeezing a Kate Bush song into her article title because she’s a big fan, Caroline Sargent explores Northumbria and Hadrian’s Wall Country with all that it has to offer the traveller and foodie. Staying in a dovecote, poking around castles and putting up with 4 star hotels are all on the menu. Running up that hill, hotly pursued by the hounds of love, will help lose any weight the visitor might put on

A cookery course and foodie safari, all run from a restored palazzo high on a hill in Abruzzo, Italy? Nick Harman takes a three day sampler to see what this almost unknown region of Italy can bring to the table

Of course Foodepedia likes a nice room but the main attraction here is the food. The Grove is lucky enough to have its original walled vegetable garden still in full use and from this chef Russell Bateman pulls as much as he can to cook in the hotel’s 3 AA Rosette fine dining restaurant Colette’s.

Venison and whisky lord over the menu when Anita Pati takes a foodie trip of Aberdeenshire. And the cock pheasants spar while the Cairngorms twinkle. What else in a land where monarch of the glen, stovies and a warming dram bring a welcome fit for royalty?

Oh boy, in a country famed for Beer, TinTin, Magritte, Mussels and Chocolate, we found the finest creator of the latter in fusion chocolatier David Maenhout in Flanders. The creations he turns out here are so utterly fantastic it’s almost a crime to eat them. Well, almost because you could claim ‘crime of passion’. David lets us into his workshop and talks about how he makes his mini-masterpieces, in between sharing out the goodies.

The Flanders coast has so many Michelin Star restaurants, all vying for the local euro. I was over to visit one in particular, Bartholomeus in Knokke, but on the journey up there from Ostend I was able to take in a lot more of what the Flanders coast has to offer and get a taste of what makes it such a great and unusual foodie weekend break destination.

Kenny Atkinson is a Great British Chef with a Michelin Star to boot. He’s now head chef at the new 5 star country house hotel Rockliffe Hall in County Durham and Nick Harman went up to sample the delights of their Gourmet Break, admire the historical setting and avoid the fabulous spa if he possibly could.