Where to go in Italy with children?

[cardy]

We are considering Italy for a family holiday - DH and 2 dds(6 and 4). Although I have been a few times (pre-children) to various cities I am not very sure about good resorts for children. We don't want anything too big, just a good beach, a few places to eat a bit of culture and self catering accommodation.

Any suggestions? Will consider Sicily and Sardina too.

We're off to Sardinia in 3 weeks so will let you know.

Where in Sardina? Self-catering? I am finding it diffcult to find s/c accommodation.

A big crowd of us are going, about 15 I think and we've hired a big villa in the north of the island. I think the person who organised it found it on holiday-rentals.com

Look forward to hearing how it was. Have a good time.

Would you be interested in the island of Elba (Tuscany)? I've been living there for a few years now.

Sandyballs - How was Sardinia?

we're going her:
www.portofelice.it

lokks a big bigger than I'd normally go for ( ipeferred teh nice quiet campsites on lake Garda but this looked perfect for the kids! It has loads for them to doa nd it's got about 5 pools - 1 with big slides. It's right ona big sandy beach and not far from Venice. We've booked with camping Life so we could pay for it with our Tesco vouchers, gonna book easyjet flights then use more Tesco vouchers for Avis car hire! Only cost about £1100 for the 4 of us mid - late Aug for a fortnight in a mobile home. Camoping Life also do lake Garda and Lake Maggiore - the LM one looked lovely but not many facilities for kids but it was only about £600 for the same fortnight in school hols for a family of 4!

Interesting, I might have a look at that. I haven't really considered camping, I was thinking of a self-catering apartment but there doesn't seem to be so many in Italy.

Practically anywhere!

We love Sicily in particular.

Do you know of any self-catering apts in Sicily I can only find hotels and villas?

Sorry - have only done villas because we go with with another family. We did Mark Warner once. That was fun - have you thought about that?

have looked at the Mark Waner website for their Sardina accommodation but it doesn't have 2008 info available yet. Would you recommend them?

I've just realized it was Club Med we went to in Sicily, not Mark Warner - sorry! I think it depends what you want. We love the sea and sailing and watersports generally and it was great just to be able to turn up and take a boat out whenever you wanted to. The food was excellent but it got a bit repetitive after the first week. We also found we drank too much - but maybe that was just us! The little apartment we had was lovely. We hired a car and went out of the resort quite often, so it got expensive. The child care seemed fine -but our daughter flatly refused to be left so that was a wash out! And it was very French - not everyone spoke English - including one of the main child care people which threw dd a bit! But we'd definitely go again. Oh, and it has an amazing circus school!

Sounds good, I'll have a look.