The essence of autumn

After the languid heat of summer, there’s a particular morning when Autumn comes knocking. You notice the air feels crisp, the sunlight brighter. Perhaps it’s the day that knitwear makes its joyous return.

Autumn is a season of vivid shifting senses. Woody smells of petrichor and bonfires, sunlight casting shadows through orange leaves. Conkers! A thatched pub! The first fire of the season! Of course, you needn’t travel far to find the signs of autumn, but a short train journey, a good book and a change of scene prime the senses. In today’s dispatch, we’ve set out to capture the essence of the season, and the exact places where it lives.

Connor Mollison

A journey across the Glenfinnan Viaduct

Scotland's most scenic train ride is at its best in autumn, where red larches and golden birches line the tracks, and morning mist settles across Loch Shiel. Combine with a night journey on the Caledonian Sleeper, paired with a dram of single malt.

Kyle Evans

Harvest mushrooms in a Haute-Savoie market

Come autumn, Annecy's surrounding woodland is a haven for mycophiles, but nervous foragers can pick them up from the old town's farmers' market: one of the most picturesque in the French Alps. Expect other traditional Haute-Savoie produce like regional Savoyard cheeses and artisanal charcuterie.

Liv Cashman

An amber beer in a Cotswold pub

If you like autumn to feel like one long golden hour, consider a honey-hued hideaway in the Cotswolds, a romp through the golden foliage of Barton Farm Country Park topped off with a freshly tapped pint of Cotswold Gold. And to stay? It might be a restored Georgian manor, but Sawday’s charming Widbrook Grange feels more like bedding down in an old friend’s country pile.

Florian Stormacq

The crunch of leaves in the ancient Ardennes

Expect New England-level leaf-peeping in the Ardennes, with your base in the unsung Belgian town of Namur. The myriad trails that lead through ancient woodlands, streams and respectable climbs are a reminder that Belgium is so much more than beer and chocolate. Although we'll take those, too.

Miltiadis Fragkidis

Smoked chestnuts from the Swiss 'chestnut riviera'

Sweet chestnuts were a highly prized delicacy in medieval Switzerland, and local traditions of chestnut harvesting and tasting festivals along the banks of Lucerne are in full swing come October. Along the north-eastern stretch of the shores is the 'chestnut riviera' with the largest market of over 60 stalls.

Peter Boccia

Cinnamon and speculoos in gingerbread houses

Few things capture autumn like the smell of sweet cinnamon and Bruges is the place to soak it up. The historic Maison La Confiance preserves the generations-old speculoos family recipe, along with their famous traditional lacy Bruges kletskoppen. Add in higgledy-piggledy gingerbread houses, traditional brown cafes and world-famous chocolatiers: this is autumn at its sweetest.