Short answer: Topsham is an hour's flat walk from Exeter Quay along the water, or four stops on the Exmouth branch line. The sensible plan is to walk one way and take the train back. It is an old port town of Dutch-gabled houses with more good pubs per street than anywhere near the city.
This is the plan that works. The walk from Exeter Quay along the water takes about an hour and is flat the entire way. Topsham has its own station on the Exmouth branch, so when you have eaten and the light is going you get the train back rather than repeating the walk in the dark.
Out of the Quay and south along the canal and estuary. Level, open and exposed — there is little shade and the wind comes straight up the estuary, so it is a different walk in February to the one it is in June. The surface is compacted and softens after rain.
Topsham is four stops from Exeter Central on the branch line to Exmouth. It takes a few minutes and runs regularly, which makes it one of the easiest car-free outings in Devon — and it means a pub lunch does not have to be negotiated around driving.
An old port on the Exe with Dutch-gabled merchants' houses, narrow streets and a working relationship with the water that it has never quite given up. It is small — you see it in an afternoon — and the pleasure is in the streets and the pubs rather than in attractions.
Topsham combines well with the Quay rather than competing with it: the canal path links the two, so the day is one continuous flat walk with a town at each end. If you have a dog, Riverside Valley Park on the Exeter side has open fields before you set off.
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