If you're looking for pastoral splendor and thinking beyond the extreme commuter belt, try the north-east. I went out with a lady from there for some years, and traveled up from London most weekends.

Like Romania, it has an almost impenetrable firewall of negative PR that isn't born out by the experience of living there. Yes, there's an ugly old ICI factory that covers several square miles (the emblem of the region). But everything beyond that is gorgeous, green and largely untrammeled. I shall never forget walking through waterfall-strewn valleys and splendid forests and meeting hardly anyone else except some friendly dog-walkers.