Holiday with friends and various children, where would you recommend?

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Any ideas appreciated (as we were discussing it today they said 'why don't you ask on mumsnet? so I am!) Some friends and I would like to go away sometime in the summer for about a week but we have no idea where. We have 7 children between us: 1 x baby; 2 x toddlers (both 1.5yo); 1 x 4yo; 2 x 6.5 yos and a 7 yo. They all get on very well and so do we. Not sure yet whether dhs will be coming, though my dp will. The criteria are:

• The children can play unsupervised-ish near us or go to a kids' club, but we don't fancy Centerparcs or anything too Butlins iykwim
• It can't be too scorching since 2 of us aren't mad on the extreme heat
• We need 4/5/6 beds (depending on space for cots, I think we'd have 3 x travelcots and 4 x kids' beds + 3 adults/couples) I think - all the older kids are fine in together and the littlies in together

We're wondering about a villa in Tuscany. What do people think? Anyone got any recommendations? We could go anywhere though, it doesn't have to be Italy. It doesn't have to be cheap although not cripplingly expensive would be ideal. TIA for any suggestions.

Ok - if you go for the villa in Tuscany you probably won't get a kids club. If that's high on your list of priorities then look at Simply Travel.com - Zakynthos, Crete, Lefkas, Turkey, Corsica - Zakynthos is sweet, contemplating Lefkas. If you want to spunk money and get some childcare go to Scott Dunn (scottdunn.co.uk?) - various villa set ups with cook/food/nannies; or you could try Clubmed - Kamarina in Sicily supposed to be nice.

Also go to babygoes2.com for a good selection of family friendly holidays.

Simply Travel also do a nanny service for

dunno what happened there - Simply also do a nanny service in Portugal, Spain - maybe Italy?

Today I will be mostly recommending Holiday Rentals website as usual. V easy to navigate, loads of choice, has availability charts but you have to contact owners direct and may find that something that looks available isn't by the time you make contact.

I find the whole site irresistible!

Beware, Tuscany in the summer is as hot as everywhere else!!! Have you thought about Mark Warner (www.markwarner.co.uk)? I haven't been but know people who have and they have very good childcare facilities even for babies HTH

Yes, willow always has a delicate turn of phrase I find. Particulary when talking about bricks Hmm, good point about Tuscany - Thanks Janh and littlemissbossy, will look at those sites in a minute.

Sorry - it is a common phrase around these parts!