Family holiday in Northern Spain... Any recommendations?
Discussion
Evening all,
I'm looking at summer holiday options for next year. I was looking at renting a villa near Dénia on the Costa Blanca, having lived there 25 years back, and all was going well until figuring out that just the flights and a large enough rental car for a family of five in August are going to come out at around £1,800, so now I'm thinking we might as well get a ferry from Portsmouth over to Bilbao or Santander, which will save a couple of hundred quid, avoid the joys of airports at unpleasant times and give me my Merc to drive rather than some crappy people carrier...
The question is, if we're arriving on the Northern coast of Spain, is it worth the 6+ hour drive to get over to the Med, or would we be better off staying on the Atlantic coast? Does anyone have any recommendations for places to stay up there? Rough criteria include:
- Kids not getting too bored. Girl of 16 (so a tall order anyway!) and boys of 13 & 11.
- Decent beaches.
- Decent non-beach stuff, eg mountain walks etc.
- Not too remote, as my wife can't drive, so I'll have to do all the shuttling around.
On a related point, does anyone with 3 kids have any experience of booking package holidays? I've never booked one before, but thought I'd give it a go, only to find that every single bloody one seems to insist on having at least one adult in every room!
I'm damned if I'm going on holiday for a fortnight and kipping with the boys, but it's unreasonable to expect our 16yr old daughter to do so either, so how do we get an extra room???
I'm looking at summer holiday options for next year. I was looking at renting a villa near Dénia on the Costa Blanca, having lived there 25 years back, and all was going well until figuring out that just the flights and a large enough rental car for a family of five in August are going to come out at around £1,800, so now I'm thinking we might as well get a ferry from Portsmouth over to Bilbao or Santander, which will save a couple of hundred quid, avoid the joys of airports at unpleasant times and give me my Merc to drive rather than some crappy people carrier...
The question is, if we're arriving on the Northern coast of Spain, is it worth the 6+ hour drive to get over to the Med, or would we be better off staying on the Atlantic coast? Does anyone have any recommendations for places to stay up there? Rough criteria include:
- Kids not getting too bored. Girl of 16 (so a tall order anyway!) and boys of 13 & 11.
- Decent beaches.
- Decent non-beach stuff, eg mountain walks etc.
- Not too remote, as my wife can't drive, so I'll have to do all the shuttling around.
On a related point, does anyone with 3 kids have any experience of booking package holidays? I've never booked one before, but thought I'd give it a go, only to find that every single bloody one seems to insist on having at least one adult in every room!
I'm damned if I'm going on holiday for a fortnight and kipping with the boys, but it's unreasonable to expect our 16yr old daughter to do so either, so how do we get an extra room???eldar said:
Asturias is delightful, kind of the Spanish Lake District. Not far from Santander, and some beautiful scenery. and beaches. English tourists are relatively infrequent which is a bonus.
Food is excellent, particularly seafood, and the local cidre is cheap and excellent and served with style, escanthier bars are well worth visiting.
Gijon is a good base, plenty ro entertain kids.
That sounds promising, thanks!Food is excellent, particularly seafood, and the local cidre is cheap and excellent and served with style, escanthier bars are well worth visiting.
Gijon is a good base, plenty ro entertain kids.
I speak fluent Spanish anyway, so the lack of large contingents of Brits and all that entails is not a problem. I just don't know the northern coast at all!
GreatGranny said:
OP, re. 3 kids on a package holiday, we normally choose a hotel which has 2 bed apartments so there's no problem with the kids all sharing a room.
We did have 2 rooms a few years ago which were adjoining and the kids just went in one and us in the other.
The booking said 1 adult per room but the hotel weren't to know.
That was fine when they were younger, but it's not really fair to expect mixed gender teenage siblings to share a room for a fortnight...We did have 2 rooms a few years ago which were adjoining and the kids just went in one and us in the other.
The booking said 1 adult per room but the hotel weren't to know.
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