Where to go? Europe beach/city/history

[Fleecy]

I'd be grateful for suggestions for our family holiday. Last year we went to a small beach town in the south of Estonia for a week then spent a few days in the capital, Tallinn. The mix worked well - a week of pottering around the town, swimming in the sea and relaxing, followed by a couple of days exploring the city. It was also reasonably priced. Where else can we have a good sandy beach with a town to explore, then a city close by (couple of hours) with plenty of history?

Just to be awkward, we'd prefer not to hire a car. Public transport is fine, with the odd taxi. We took coach transfers in Estonia.

Any ideas welcome! We'd be going in early July, so I know a lot of places will be busy.

Thanks in advance.

Not good on specifics as I haven’t been myself but somewhere on the Polish coast near Gdansk might work? Or Lithuania?

You could also look at the Netherlands, though the weather may be unpredictable - we’ve been to Duinrell last year near Wassenaar and there is a sandy beach there, also at Scheveningen, and the Netherlands has great public transport (or you can hire bikes). Both are very near/virtually in The Hague.

I would also suggest somewhere near Nice in France but prices will be higher there and not all the beaches are sand (though I think Villefrance is).

Can I suggest Slovenia
Fly to Ljubljana, spend a couple of days there, then get the coach to Lake Bled and have some time pottering and relaxing and sunbathing and swimming by the lake. Lots of nice walks/hikes from there too
The caves at Postojna are jaw dropping, widely agreed to be the most stunning in the world and you can get a coach there for the day.
Lake Bohinj also reachable by public transport for a day.
Its a beautiful and very well organised country.

Anywhere near Scheveningen beach by The Hague. As
well as The Hague, Delft is very close and Rotterdam and Leiden too.

Agree with pp Ljubljana and lake Bled.

Dubrovnik was also fab, plus go across to the island and swim.

Rhodes old town. Beautiful, historic, great beaches :)

I was going to say the Hague too. I can't give any opinions on accommodation though, as I've always stayed with family.

Lisbon. Although beach is 20 mins on train

Barcelona ?

Berlin, paired with one of the German Baltic resorts (Warnemünde?).

Ljubljana, paired with Koper.

I was also going to suggest Slovenia! Small, good transport connections, mountains, lakes, coast, nice towns, architecture. We would like to take the kids.

I’m assuming that you’d like your children to have some kind of future, so either go by train, there are many routes across the continent, or holiday in the UK.
✈️ are not a good idea.

I clicked on this thread to say Slovenia, but I would add Piran to the itinerary (for the coastal part.
I'd stay in Bohinj for a couple of days, visit Bled for a day on the way to Ljubliana (another couple of days) and then down to Piran (taking in some caves on the way if you want). All very doable by bus (we only travelled by bus in Slovenia- efficient, easy, and cheap).
If you can fly home from Trieste, all the better. But if not, just bus back to Ljubliana.

One of my favourite holidays ever - I loved it.

We did Berlin and then Chiemsee (Bavarian/Austrian border). A full day drive down though.

You could do Baltic Coast, Travemûnde for example, with day trips to Lübeck and Hamburg as well.

Crete - Heraklion/Knossos/Rethymno & lots of sandy beach options

Dubrovnik & Kolocep island (wouldn’t recommend in high summer though,
too hot & busy)

La Rochelle and Ile de Re or coastal beaches near Royan. Chatellaillon (sp?) sur Plage is nice

Any Tuscan city (Florence, Pisa etc) plus Tuscan beach. Or Rome plus southern Tuscan beaches but they’re not all that

Sicily

Carcassone & south coast of France beaches (not cote d’azur but further west, much less busy)

Slovenia is on my to do list.

I also came on to say Croatia - we stayed on Lopud which is a super pretty island a short ferry journey from Dubrovnik and we had a good combo holiday there.

We did South France this year, stayed just outside Aix-en-Provence and got to do some lovely snorkelling at the coast but also visited some beautiful towns and countryside.

Wow, thank you - lots here to investigate! Much appreciated - I'll work through the suggestions.

Crete is a good shout for lively beaches and history. We’re off there for a second time this year and doing the western end. Last time we visited (about 8 years ago) we did Knossos, spinalonga and Heraklion for and museum. Really interesting and can have a standard beach holiday in between.

Corfu is also great for history and the old town is amazing.

Loads of great suggestions here. How about Lübeck and Travemünde? Easy train from Hamburg or Amsterdam. It's where Thomas Mann is from and there is all the marzipan you can eat.

Might be a bit similar to what you did in Estonia, but Riga has a sandy beach at Jurmula to combine with city time in Riga itself. I have my eyes on a trip to the Coronian Spit in Lithuania, which is a national park, though it's quite a trek (4 hours ish by train) from Vilnius, but you can fly to Palanga. Lots of others have already said Slovenia which I loved, though we did hire a car for a few days. Did similar to others and based ourselves in Bled after a day in Ljubljana and toured from there. I found Slovenia also quite pricey as a holiday destination. We flew to Zagreb and took the train to Slovenia as Ljubljana only accessible from London airports. We had a really nice time in Bilbao and San Sebastian last August, nice beach, not too hot, but prices are very high in San Sebastian.

I'd suggest Cefalu and Palermo in Sicily. Cefalu is a picturesque small seaside town with nice beaches a short train ride from Palermo- you can also get the train to other towns and buses to historical sites!

How about Rügen Island on Baltic coast of Germany paired and Hamburg or Berlin? White cliffs and beaches on Rügen….it’s on our list to go to!
Where was your coastal spot in Estonia?

Probably Parnu. It’s a gorgeous little town.

if you enjoyed Estonia, you could go to Riga with Jurmala beach town on its doorstep. It’s like 30 mins on the local commuter train. There’s the rather unique Kemeri National Park, a bog with boardwalks near Jurmala or you could hop on the train to Sigulda with its castles and river valley and canoeing and all the other activities it offers.

I would also like to recommend Gdansk. We visited in September and had a lovely holiday. We didn’t hire a car and used public transport which was good, for example we travelled to Malbork Castle by train and the beach by tram. Gdansk is the location of the start of World War II as well as the birthplace of the Solidarity Movement. It is also famous for it’s amber.

During the summer there is the Saint Dominic Market, with over 1000 stalls. However, I imagine it gets very busy then and accommodation prices increase.

I must admit after reading this thread, there are some brilliant suggestions and I will definitely be looking at Slovenia for a future holiday.