Recommendations pls - teens, 7 year old, affordable to eat out, not busy, Spain/France/Italy.....

[Magpie1976]

Not familiar with Spain or France and looking for somewhere warm and quiet but within walking distance of restaurants, shops etc. Enjoy hiking/swimming/visiting places with some history/culture. Will be July/August. Can anyone make any suggestions? Thanks

Watching for same recommendations please

Well, "affordable" is very subjective. What do you actually mean?

For quiet in July/August I'd suggest a small campsite. It will probably be at full capacity but on a small site that'd mean 300 families not 1200 families. There are loads so you'd have to start filtering, maybe by what port or airport you plan to arrive at.

How hot can you stand?

We stayed at Sole di Sari which is just up the hill from a little village on coast of Corsica. There was enough onsite for the dc. Plenty of opportunities for swimming: pool, direct river access and beaches about 30 mins walk.

Thanks. I'm hoping to fly from Manc/Leeds/Liverpool, for max 2.5 hours. Looking at jet 2 packages there's not much coming up for less than 3.5k and it mainly seems to be quite resorty busy places (high rise hotels etc). So I'm looking to book independently but don't know where to start. I was hoping to spend around 1-1.5k for the week on accommodation.

This sounds great! Small villages in pretty locations is just what I'm looking for and would never have considered Corsica.

A few years ago in Crete at mid-30s was way too hot, so ideally around 25-30 - is this realistic?!

Castell Mogri, a campsite in Estartit or
Camping Vilanova Park in Vilanova y la Geltru are both smallish and really good value. We flew to Barcelona and hired a car so we could get about, but lots of places are walkable.

You could fly to Marseilles and get a hire car to southern alps. Beautiful lakes. And hot but not too hot. Rarely over 30. If you avoid the big named resorts in the alls and go for self catering you’d easily get accomm for under 1000 on booking.com. Check out the durance and ubaye valleys. Near Serre Poncon lake.

there’s masses to do for kids.

Thanks - this sounds like just what we're after. I love a lake and mountains holiday. Any village/town in particular that you'd recommend?

We loved the Spanish Pyrenees last year. Obviously amazing for hiking, and there are also lots of beautiful rivers to swim in (limestone country). We stayed near Bielsa, near the edge of the Monte Perdido National Park. It was perfect weather for both walking and swimming (although not perhaps for camping- we had a couple of spectacular nocturnal rainstorms, one of which did for our awning 😱), even when it was 40 degrees in the lowlands.

Consider flying to Bilbao and holiday in Northern Spain. Not too hot, affordable.

Northern Portugal flying to Porto is also cheaper to eat out.

so ideally around 25-30 - is this realistic?!

Not in Italy/France/Spain in July-August, unless you are in the mountains or Brittany.

Embrun is beautiful. Not well known by Brits but it’s wonderful. DM me if you’d like to know more (I have a list of summer activities).

Picks de europa, there are set up campsites.