My recommendation would be to stay inland and travel to the coast for a paddle – or, better, for the birds, plants and saltmarshes of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust’s Gibraltar Point nature reserve just south of Skegness.This isn’t a place to visit for luxury hotels or Michelin-starred restaurants. Some of my worst culinary experiences bar none have been in south Lincolnshire: they may know about flowers in Spalding but a virulently pink chicken – allegedly caused by a raspberry sauce – convinced me that at least one chef there knows nothing about food.Hotels emphasise comfort and friendliness rather than emulating Le Crillon. Indeed, there’s a danger that the whole county may sound prosaic. But walk around the floodlit Cathedral Close in Lincoln at midnight; stroll along the coastal paths where the North Sea gives way to the Wash; drive over the Wolds on a sunny afternoon to see where Tennyson lived; and relax with a pint of Bateman’s in a country pub at the end of the day and you’ll start to believe there’s poetry here. Give it time – and celebrate a county where, thankfully, there’s not much call for a News Car.Roger Mosey is the BBC’s Head of Television News.

Pick and click for detailsThe panelNeil Cameron is an art historian, critic and a keen mountain biker and hill walker; Robin Howie lives in Edinburgh and is on his eighth round of Munros (with replacement hips); Rona Johnson was brought up in Edinburgh into a fishing-mad family, and now lives in Ullapool. In a former life she was arts editor of The Scotsman; Bruce Sandison, whose book Walk Scotland (Mainstream Publishing £12.99) has become a classic, lives in Sutherland and is among Scotland’s best-known fishermen and a writer on environmental matters.. First, some notes on pronunciation. The ski resort of Sauze d’Oulx is in Italy, so don’t be fooled into giving it a French accent: the Italians call it “Sow-zer douss” or “Sew-zay do”

First, some notes on pronunciation. Or, since they aren’t really sure, they sometimes fall back on the old Italian name, Ulzio. I don’t know what the locals call it, because they speak a Piedmont dialect.Second, some interesting background. The area’s marketing manager once described Sauze d’Oulx as “the fiefdom of British skiers”; package tourists from the UK occupy nine out of 10 of the beds there during the season It has much in common with Torremolinos.

True, it lacks the time-share touts, but there are discos, karaoke machines and bars selling beer by the pint.Third, despite Sauze d’Oulx’s reputation for being hyperactive night and day, it does have one serene, deserted and delightful piste, which lets intermediate skiers – and even confident beginners – get off the beaten track.It takes guts to admit that a favourite ski run is the route from the top of Sauze d’Oulx’s slopes down to its satellite resort, Jouvenceaux. There is nothing remotely heroic about it: no jump turns, no crevasses, no need to take a guide – it goes to extremes only in its moderation. It starts at 2,500m in the snow bowl above the treeline, and, as it enters the trees, it slides off to the south. It drops over a steepish ridge (a moment of excitement there) and into a wide avenue. This is pleasant enough; but it’s when the piste splits that it gets really good.What’s so good about it is that you never know where you are going. If there are any signposts, I’ve missed them on my descents; there are none of those wide-open crests from which you can plot the next quarter of an hour’s skiing; and you can’t see the ski lift because it’s tucked away in the woods.

After the fork, the piste narrows down to a forest track, which cuts diagonally along a wooded slope, across a ridge, and down through an abandoned hamlet. Here, unusually, you do see other skiers, either studying their piste maps closely or just wondering where they took a wrong turning.Perhaps the hamlet, called Tachier, isn’t abandoned: the little chapel is still in good nick (unlike the barns), and I saw two hand-painted wooden signs assert that Eros is serving drinks at his bar. The bar is always there but, in my experience, never Eros.Here, skiers who find archaeology a turn-off can do just that: there’s a track to the right that will take them, very slowly, back to the bottom of the Sportinia chairlift at Sauze d’Oulx. Those who stay with it follow the piste across a snowfield towards a massive view of the Fr?s valley, drop back into the trees and swoop across a series of dips to the final ridge above Jouvenceaux. The drop off that ridge delivers you right to the front gate of La Fontaine restaurant.Jouvenceaux, at 1,380m, is no picture postcard. It’s almost a mirror image of Sauze d’Oulx – it has the architecture of Torremolinos, but without the lifestyle. It is so quiet that you feel you should introduce yourself to the other skiers on the big sun terrace at La Fontaine; and so quiet that, as you catch some sun after lunch, you will just hear the hum of the nearby chairlift that is going to take you back up the mountain.