Ideas for a holiday with a 4 month old

[lunepremiere79]

Hi all, looking for some ideas for a 7 day holiday with a 4 month old in September. We don't drive, so a city/town somewhere in Europe (we are looking at France, Spain or Portugal at the moment) that's not too difficult to get to and wouldn't take long from London. Any ideas would be much appreciated!

Nice on the south coast of France would be suitable. There are lots of places of interest in the city itself and along the coast (which is easy to travel along by train). It's an incredibly pushchair-friendly city - the famous Promenade des Anglais is an attractive paved walkway lined with interesting shops and restaurants on one side and the beach on the other. It goes on for miles and has lots of benches in the shade which are great for feeding your LO or just people watching!
Sunshine is almost guaranteed but it's not too hot. There are lots of gardens and green spaces and it's always easy to find a bench or a shady spot.
The Novotel has baby baths and baby sitting on request and family rooms are generously sized. It has a rooftop pool with sea views. The hotel is a few minutes from the tram station and Nice airport is just 9km away. The flight from London to Nice is exactly two hours.

What do you want to do? With a sling you can go pretty much anywhere at that age.

We are not massively into beach activities/ sunbathing, but would be nice to have access to water to go for a stroll. We'd want some interesting history and culture to explore as well as some nice restaurants. Not necessarily looking for a big city, but somewhere where we could spend 6-7 nights and not feel bored..

Ricekrispie, thank you! Nice sounds very tempting - always fancied going to south of France but never been. Always thought it was quite touristy and being from London that's not a draw, but maybe it's not the case

Munich.
The englische Garten is huge. It's got a river running through it.
The museums are good.
You could take a day trip to the mountains from there by train.
There are lots of other cultural things to do.

Innsbruck would give you similar.

I've not been to the Nice area but we're planning on going next year. There are pretty little towns to explore on the train line going east from Marseille.

If you want water, there's also Lake Constance staying in Freidrichshafen, Konstanz or Lindau.

Could do Venice - can get vaporetto around to Murano / Burano etc and the Venice Lido has a beach. Italians love children and lots of lovely ice cream shops.

If you want to go elsewhere Italy has an amazing train network. We did Rome - Florence - Pisa by train and think it also connects up to Venice though check.

You can also do quite a few places via Eurostar - Bruges is lovely though more 3 days than a week. Rome has loads of history and culture and good food and accessible by train / plane though busier.

Thanks all for your ideas! Plenty to think about now :)

We also did Stockholm and Copenhagen when children were very little and both are nice and easy to get to - we flew from one to the other.

Valencia has city and beach

cestlavielife I've been tempted by Valencia, but heard from someone that virtually nothing is open between 3-10pm, in which case there will be nothing for us to do?? Do you know if this is true?

Strange idea many places open all day !
Some shops may close midday open at 4 pm but all the main sites open

www.valencia-cityguide.com/tourist-attractions/the-city-of-arts-and-sciences.html
Open all Day e.g.
www.valencia-cityguide.com/tourist-attractions/museums/museo-de-las-ciencias-principe-felipe.html
High season (from 1/07 to 16/09): 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Check individual open g times
www.valencia-cityguide.com/tourist-attractions/monuments-museums/

Places like El Corte Ingles (good cafe top floor) and city centre cafes open all day

Not been with a baby, but I'll second Nice as being lovely. I'd avoid during July/August but Sept should be gorgeous. Lots of culture, museums and galleries, parks, good food, cafe culture, easy to travel to other places like Cannes or smaller towns by train or do a water taxi to Monaco if you do end up finding it a bit boring.