Europe in April with a 4y/o - recommendations?

[libbylove]

Hi - can anyone recommend somewhere nice and warm to go in April with a four year old? There's only one of her so a city break with museums etc might be a good idea. We're going in April in the hope that it might be cheaper than going in the summer hols.

We want to go for two weeks and our budget is £2k. Considering a driving holiday as well - would welcome your thoughts on that.

We just booked to go to the Algarve in April (it'll be about 20C apparently) and it was remarkably cheap. Flights were under 200 return each (from our local airport, with decent flight times), and we booked a very nice 3 bedroom villa for a week for under £800. There were much cheaper (and smaller) villas available, which still looked great (loads had pools etc). You'd be able to get something nice for £400 a week. Car hire wouldn't be ridiculous either if you wanted to drive.

To have warmth on the Atlantic coast, you need to go south.
I am not sure Algarve is about 20 degrees. A friend of mine is Portuguese and whenever she visited her family for Easter she would pack warm clothes. She said it was colder than Barcelona where we lived at that time.
The sea will be ice cold and the pool freezing.

If you want to combine a bit of sea and visits, a Southern Italy tour which includes Sicily has a good combination of sea side and plenty of history / museums. The weather will be less unpredictable than Portugal . We toured Sicily years ago during the Easter break and I have pictures of all of us on Taormina beach splashing in the water. It was really warm, water was chilly but not painfully so.

Italy has the added benefit of great food and plenty to do at any age. If weather is warm, go to the beach, if not, go to the Roman and Greek sites, take the historic train from Catania to the Etna and so on.

Don't rent a villa, go local, so you talk to people and enjoy the typical Italian dolce vita

Take the ferry to Spain (driving one way through France via Bordeaux is fun too) Northern Spain is lovely, not as touristy as the southern coast, we got as far as Santiago de Compestela

I don't think anywhere is reliably warm at easter - can you go in may half term instead? If they are 4 are they in nursery - you can take them out of school before they turn 5

Just check historic weather as Easter time can be cold even in Spain