Travelling with your significant other is a great opportunity to ramp up romance, but grand plans can easily fall victim to cliché. Helen Raine discovers some more unusual pastimes for two to enjoy this summer.

Paris, the capital of romance, has a problem: love locks.

The craze for declaring undying love by fixing a padlock to one of the city’s beautiful bridges and then throwing the key into the Seine has hit Paris hard and the intricate, ancient metal work is groaning under the weight of 100,000 tiny little love stories.

The problem has ‘gone viral’. In Rome, the administration has had to introduce fines; in Seoul, the view from the N Seoul tower has been partially obscured; in Prague, Sydney and even in Malta, where love locks are running amok in Sliema and St Julian’s.

Even the very top of the Eiffel Tower is not immune, with half a dozen naff-looking heart-shaped ones hanging there already.

With historic structures at risk, it’s time to buck the trend and jump on a new love bandwagon… one that won’t ruin the view for everyone else. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Glamp up the love

Furs on the floor, wooden timbers and a sauna yurt all hit the romance spot, so throw in a woodland workshop and you’re on to a winner at Crafty Camping in the UK.

They offer a series of wonderful adult-only glamping experiences including Bodkin the Bell Tent, Poppet the Yurt, Hoppus the Tipi and Bodger the Shepherd’s Hut, all set in the beautiful Dorset forest near the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.

You can take a woodworking course to carve everything from love spoons to love seats

While there, you can take a woodworking course to carve everything from love spoons to love seats. The tuition is suitable for beginners to experts.

Courses vary from two to five hours a day and all the materials are provided. Full details at www.mallinson.co.uk.

Activities in the area include strawberry picking at Forde Abbey, fossil hunting at Charmouth (you’re virtually guaranteed to come away with an ammonite) and strolling through the Abbotsbury Swannery, the only place in the world where you can walk through a colony of nesting mute swans.

Lyme Regis Cycles will also deliver a bike to Crafty Camping for just €18 a day; you can always request a tandem.

Meaningful mosaics

Pictorial love letters of Roman mosaics have lasted for hundreds of years.

Now you can make your own mosaic under the tutelage of expert Dan Rust, who runs the Taras Retreat in Cartagena, Spain.

During the course, you’ll be given the materials and guidance to complete a board mosaic you can take home, as well as the skills to do more when you get there.

Courses can run for a day or over a week; contact www.mosaicman.eu for costs and details.

Accommodation can also be provided; there’s a pool, yoga studio and the food is organic and vegetarian. Double rooms start at around €60.

Exploring Cartagena will likely give you some inspiration: there are dozens of impressive Roman remains including an underground city with the house of a prosperous merchant and the Augusteum Museum, once used as meeting place for the priests of the cult of Emperor Augustus.

Above ground, take the glass lift to the top of Conception Hill for panoramic views.

Cookie love

If the way to a lover’s heart is through their stomach, then look no further than www.flavoursholidays.co.uk.

You won’t come away with anything tangible from their three-night Cooking in Tuscany course (you’ll have eaten it all), but you will have learnt the secrets of ribollita – a hearty vegetable stew – and have broken homemade, chunky Tuscan bread with your beloved.

Accommodation is in a villa with a pool in the picturesque village of San Gimignano, not far from elegant Lucca and the winding streets of Florence, with its lively trattorias serving excellent local wines.

You’ll get nine lessons with the chef, as well as full board accommodation and private wine tasting. Prices start at around €1,100 per person.

(Coco) nuts about art

Coconut painting is an art form in the Caribbean so check out the offerings in the local shops to see how it’s done, then crack open the Crayolas and paint your own lover’s coconut as a memento.

Ti Kaye in St Lucia is the perfect place to do it. You’ll stay in a cute little cottage on a cliff top with a stunning sea view.

Each room has an outdoor shower, hammock and rocking chair and some have a plunge pool too. It couldn’t be more romantically inspiring.

Seven nights, including flights from London, will set you back around €2,326 with www.kenwoodtravel.com.