European holiday suggestions

[Kiopa]

Hello, looking for suggestions for next year's summer holiday. We will probably go at the beginning of September with our 1 year old. We like places with somewhere to swim (sea, lake), nice restaurants serving local cuisine and nice scenery, so nothing groundbreaking! We're keen to rent a flat or small villa with a pool (shared is fine). This year we went to port de soller in Mallorca, which we love but its expensive for a place with a pool that isn't up in the hills. One alternative I'm thinking about is port de pollenca, but keen for ideas outside of Mallorca!

Greek islands. With a 1 yr old you want somewhere with a direct flight so look at Crete, Corfu, Kefalonia, Zakynthos, Lefkada, Skiathos.

Panormos in Crete might suit well or Meganissi in Corfu. Couple of nice child friendly places in Kefalonia but I can’t remember their names sorry!

Lindos in Rhodes

Lake Garda

Kassiopi in Corfu. Lots of apartments available, we always go to the same one as we love the ground floor apartment and the owners do airport transfers in a Merc minibus which is so much easier. Kassiopi has loads of lovely restaurants and the hotels with pools are happy for you to use their facilities if you use their pool bars for drinks and food. (Our favourite apartment has a shared pool across the road, but we liked the others for getting lunches at).

We hire a car to visit sandy beaches down the coast, there's one ten minutes down which is fantastic for little ones, as it shelves so slightly the sea is very shallow and warm for miles out. They have loos and tavernas by the beaches too. A car gives you a lot of freedom to explore but even staying in the location is fine. It's a one-time fishing village which has been developed so has a harbour rather than a beach in the village itself. There are loads of fantastic restaurants and cafes. There's a waterpark nearby as well with fun pools for little children, if you don't drive, you can do it as an organised day trip.

You'll probably find that Greece is cheaper than Spain, I look at other countries every year and they're always more expensive overall, even though we're not looking for luxury?

If you like Spain, consider coastal Asturias and Cantabria. Generally not the oven that the rest of Spain is, fewer tourists, beautiful beaches, great seafood, beef and potatoes. If you want history stuff, you can do a day trip to places like Covadonga.