Right, stop arsing around and tell me where to go on holiday. Requirements are....

[IdontFeelLikeDancing]

1. POOL
2. Beach if poss. but not necc.
3. Town/shops within walking distance (can't afford don't want to hire a car)
4. Not full of loads of other families (oh the irony) ie a smallish place
5. Not too expensive to fly too

Not asking for much am I? Any suggestions, happy to try a different/more unusual country than the norms (ie not France)

Can anyone help?

Croatia??

What is your Budget for the whole thing?

We stayed here in Italy. Flights to Nice or Genoa. No car necessary. We got the train and a taxi. Shops/beach/restaurants within spitting distance and public transport to get out and about very good. Food wonderful. There is a waterpark in town too, though we didn't bother as dd was only about 6 months.

DH says 'virtually nothing' basically I need to find something that won't cost more than a week or two in Devon (obviously no flight costs in that holiday although accomodation is expensive in UK I think)

Portofino - that looks perfect but I can't get the price list up (always worrying!)

Cloudhopper - have you been to Croatia?

Croatia is ace.

When do you want to go? Term time or school holiday time?

The countryside in the Czech Republic wa lovely. We flew to Prague and hired a car. We actually did stay for a couple of nights in Prague first, but that is not essential by any means. We then drove about an hour from Prague and stayed in a lovely villa with its own private pool. It was int he middle of the countyside but close enough to small towns and villages, castles, etc to visit.

Flights to Prague very cheap as can do the no frills airlines.

The accomodation was lovely and very reasonable, even int he middle of school holidays.

Oh my goodness, Portofino, I used to go to residence Uliveto as a child with my grandmother... I used to spend there a few weeks in the winter. So many lovely memories

Franca - how uncanny! We had a lovely week, it is a very nice part of the world.

Price list opens for me. When are you planning on going and how much room do you need? Peak season (end July to 21st Aug) starts at 679 euros per week for a studio. Then it is cheaper at other times.

Holiday time (I'm teacher and both dc at school)
We were trying to avoid having to hire a car as it adds so much to the cost. That place in Czech does sound lovely though.

Any recommendations for places to stay in Croatia?

Advantage of Czech Republic is no Euro. The value of the Euro makes a lot of Europe very expensive at the moment.

Car hire in Czech was very reasonably priced and the flights very cheap.

We also went in school holidays, in the summer.

Hulababy, can you remember the name of the villa you stayed in?

Will have a look later this morning

Q&A

Just been looking through the old paperwork fromt hat holiday and found the folloing info.

• Easyjet flights were £65 return per person, in August

• We stayed in a large apartment just off Wenceslas Square, 3 bed, and paid £89 per night.

• The apartment owner arranged airport transfers for us. A normal car would have been £35 return, but because there were 7 of us he sent a stretch limo (the little girls thought they were in heaven!!!) for £55 return.

• We hired a large 8 seater van/car (as 7 of us) from holidayautos.com for £482 including insurance and an extra driver.

• We then had a lovely villa in the Czech countryside which we booked through novasol.co.uk 4 bed villa with private pool and changing rooms and set in lots of forest type areas which the girls loved exploring. It was about £1000 for the week, but huge. Most rooms were triple so can sleep up to 12. The house had a games room with pool table and dart board. The outside space was huge!

We almost booked this property for the same price but it had gone.

Hulababy, thanks so much, it was really kind of you to search out the info. Would never have thought of the Czech republic. Will have a good look later. Thanks again

No probelm. We had a lovely holiday there. I am sure Katz would agree, who we went with.

We were originally looking at Croatia but couldn't find the type of accomodation that we wanted. It was mainly hotels or apartments but with shared pools. We wanted our own space.