You don’t come on holiday to Blackpool for a good night’s sleep

The resort still offers fun and naughtiness, but now has an arty B&B and some classy food if, for some reason, you don’t want cod and chips

A trip to Ibiza to watch the sunset at Cafe del Mar may be off the cards for most this summer, but there’s always Blackpool.

Sitting with a gin and tonic in the Bloom Bar at the end of the North Pier reaffirmed my long-held belief that there is nowhere better to watch the sun dip below the horizon than the Lancastrian coast. Even the seagulls, chip-nicking menaces by day, take on a poetic quality as silhouettes in the pinky-purple evening light, with Black Combe, the Lake District’s most western fell, just visible to the north.