Villa holiday recommendations

[Ineedaholiday5]

I'm booking a holiday for 8 adults one toddler and 1 baby next year. Ideally it would be a self catering villa with pool. We went to Majorca last year and loved it but some of the group said they would like the option to do more things outside of the villa as other than visit Palma for the day we did very little else. Anybody got any suggestions of places to go? So far looking at portugal but not sure of what there is to do - open to other suggestions too! Thank you

Crete had loads to do. we stayed over by Elounda. there are a huge choice of villas and now is the time to book to get a decent one. ownersdirect or vrbo are good places to start.

What sort of things do they want to do?
Sporty outdoorsy stuff? Try The Alps, France, Germany or Swiss have lots of walking biking, outward bounds type stuff.
Cultural and historic - tuscany?
Foodies - provence or languedoc or Italy.

Crete would be jolly hot during the summer holidays. Not conducive to doing anything I would have thought. When are thinking of going?