Sunparks, De Haan, Belgium

We took DS (age 2.5) to Sunparks for a week in July 2010 as we wanted something an easy drive from the UK and this place fitted the bill perfectly as it's only a couple of hours from Calais. It's a holiday village of little self-catering cottages and it was very comfortable. The site is car-free except on changeover day, so that made it very safe and there was a central block containing a supermarket, several restaurants, a swimming pool with slides and waves, and a huge indoor soft play area. Outside was mini-golf, a playground, you could hire bikes (or bring your own), and the beach was across the road. It was quite a walk however. I did it one day with DS and it took us about half an hour with a longish walk and a long flight of steps at the end to reach the beach.

All in all, it was a very nice place and close enough to Bruges, Antwerp, Ypres, Ghent and lots of pretty little towns for days out. There are loads of WWI sites all around that area of Belgium, if that interests you, and the beaches are wide and sandy (but rather exposed and windy). Bruges and Ghent were super towns for day trips and nowhere near as touristy and naff as I thought they might be - they were both very charming and had lots of good, inexpensive restaurants that served child-friendly food. Plenty of scope for boat trips around the canals too, and cycle rides across the attractive, cycle-friendly, flat landscape.

The facilities at Sunparks, however, would've suited older kids better. Our DS was too little to go in the pool with waves or enjoy many of the activities on offer, but he loved the soft play centre, the aquarium at Blankenberg and the boat trip in Bruges.