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Al Gelso Bianco in Tuscany
Al Gelso Bianco in Tuscany has plenty of space for kids to run around in, plus a gated pool
Al Gelso Bianco in Tuscany has plenty of space for kids to run around in, plus a gated pool

10 of the best family summer holidays in Europe

This article is more than 8 years old

Now Easter’s out of the way, it’s time to start planning your next family holiday. Here are 10 places where there’s fun stuff for the kids plus great crowd-free places to stay

Tuscany, Italy

South of Florence and west of Siena (both of which make easy day trips), the Val d’Elsa promises everything a Tuscan holiday should. Explore olive groves and riverside paths on short hikes, hire a Trail-A-Bike and take younger children for a pedal around the hills (and gelaterias). Book older kids in for a riding lesson and venture to pretty towns such as San Gimignano and Sovicille to explore churches, eat pizza and play on the swings.
Where to stay
Seven apartments at Al Gelso Bianco sleep between two and eight. Everything from cots to sterilisers can be provided and there’s plenty of space to run around in, plus a gated pool. It’s part of a working farm and winery and agricultural estate (you can buy their chianti, vin santo and olive oil), and there are regular children’s pasta- and pizza-making classes.
Apartment for two adults and two children from €746 a week, +39 05 58 07 56 58, algelsobianco.it

Provence, France

Graine & Ficelle

The village of Saint-Jeannet is a good base if you want to avoid the scrum around Vence and Grasse but still tap into the Riviera’s picturesque villages and glinting coastline. This medieval village, at the base of one of the majestic baous (tall rocky hills) inland from Vence and Nice, has boulangeries and bistros for a slice of authentic French life, but also easy access to beaches, the Var valley for rafting and the Gorges du Loup for canyoning.
Where to stay
Graine & Ficelle is a stylish holiday home on an organic farm outside Saint-Jeannet with a spectacular barn-style kitchen. It sleeps 10 and has a pool and gardens. In the grounds, there are also two chic, en suite tented lodges, each sleeping six. Children can help feed the animals and tend the vegetables.
Lodges cost from €1,272 a week, the main house from €3,000 a week, +33 6 11 58 29 83, graine-ficelle.com

Tarn-et-Garonne, Midi-Pyrénées, France

Cap Nature, a treetop adventure park

South west of Cahors in the Tarn-et-Garonne départment, the Quercy Blanc area takes its name from the region’s white limestone, from which many of its houses are built. Quiet and rural with flower-peppered meadows and orchards, it offers a quintessential French family holiday. Shop at local markets for melons and peaches (in summer, markets are often held in the evening and include music and entertainment) and spend the days cycling and picnicking. There are lakeside beaches in Molières and Montaigu-de-Quercy, offering swimming, kayaking, trampolining, pedalos and volleyball. There’s also a treetop adventure park, Cap Nature, outside Cahors.
Where to stay
Opening in Molières in late April, Domaine de Massoulac is a collection of new two-bedroom, two-bathroom lodges, with private terraces. They’re designed for families, with swimming and paddling pools, a shady playground, boules, badminton court, games room and Shetland pony walks. For adults, there’s a bar and a spa.
Lodges from €480 a week for four (this includes an opening offer of 30% off 2015 bookings), +33 6 23 86 52 03, domainedemassoulac.com

Brittany, France

Petites Maisons dans la Prairie

With a name combining the Breton word for seaside and the French word for coast, the Côtes-d’Armor départment in northern Brittany promises plenty of both. Its spectacular coastline is rocky and rose-tinted – around Ploumanac’h it’s not hard to see why it’s dubbed the Pink Granite Coast – but there are lovely beaches right along the Côtes d’Armor, many geared towards families. At Plage de la Blanche, in the village of Binic, there are seawater swimming and paddling pools set into the sand. Les Rosaires, just down the coast near Plérin sur Mer, is patrolled by lifeguards and there are watersports and beach games for children in high summer. Inland, there are historic towns and villages, cycle paths, crêpes to be eaten and, at Pleumeur-Bodou, a treetop adventure park (parcduradome.com). On rainy days, head to Loudéac for Les Aquatides indoor pool complex.
Where to stay
Petites Maisons dans la Prairie, outside Plélo, a 10-minute drive from the beach, has seven family-friendly cottages to rent, all with an air of Beatrix Potter about them. Ranging from one-bedroom cottages for couples with a baby, to a property big enough for six, they’re 3km from the owner’s farm, where there’s a restaurant, playground, pony rides and farm animals.
A cottage sleeping four costs from €550 a week, +33 6 7003 5732, holiday-cottage-brittany.co.uk

Granada, Spain

Las Chimeneas offers activities such as weaving archery, family yoga and circus skills

Even in high summer, this hilly patch of southern Spain has quiet paths to walk, waterfalls to cool off in and peaceful, whitewashed villages to explore. South east of Granada, on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada, the Alpujarras are fringed by fruit trees and crisscrossed by terraces first installed by the Moors. In addition, it’s fiesta season in many villages. Children will enjoy geocaching and mountain biking and, around an hour’s drive away, wide sandy beaches at Salobreña and Almuñécar.
Where to stay
Las Chimeneas, in the village of Mairena, offers tailor-made family activity holidays. Or book a self-catering apartment and add activities such as weaving, archery, family yoga and circus skills.
Holidays cost from €545pp half-board (children €370), apartments from €900 a week for four, +34 958 760 352, laschimeneas.com

Western Algarve, Portugal

Monte Clérigo beach. Photograph: Alamy

It’s all about the beaches in this southern region of Portugal, close to the Alentejo border; long, wild and often empty, it has them in spades. Base yourself near the small town of Aljezur and you’ve got the best of the region’s sand on the doorstep – including Amoreira, Arrifana and Monte Clérigo, which are all inside the Costa Vicentina natural park – plus a range of homely restaurants. For organised activities, book a family donkey trek or craft workshop with Burros & Artes, sign older children up for surf school, book a family activity day with Algarve Adventure or cycle up into the hills to explore cork-oak-forested slopes and small villages, stopping to buy oranges at the stalls that line the roadsides each summer.
Where to stay
Solar-powered Casa do Canal, outside Aljezur, has two chic but cheap self-catering apartments with babysitting and surf lessons as optional extras.
Casa Vermelha sleeps two adults and two children, from €40 a night; Casa Amarala sleeps up to 10, from €80 a night, +351 962 364460, casadocanal.com

Coimbra district, Portugal

The historic Portuguese town of Coimbra. Photograph: Alamy

If you’re happy to make your own entertainment, the countryside around Tábua, a central Portuguese town, promises a brilliantly low-key holiday. Go paddling in the Mondego river, visit hillside villages, explore historic Coimbra, spend a day at the coast (90 minutes’ drive away) if you’re craving the sea, and pack a picnic for hiking, biking or kayaking trips in the Serra da Estrela mountains.
Where to stay
Quinta do Rabaçal is just outside the village of Vila do Mato, on the banks of the Mondego, and home to three family-friendly, self-catering cottages and a wooden cabin. There’s a swimming pool and playground on site, kayaks to borrow and a meadow to run around in. Guests can buy vegetables from the quinta’s organic garden and eggs from its free-range chickens and ducks. For those who really must do more, a neighbouring business offers horse-riding lessons, mountain biking and yoga.
Wooden cabin sleeping four from €365 a week, no phone, pureportugalholidays.com

Mugla province, Turkey

A yurt at Avalon Steppes

Kayaköy in the Kaya valley, on Turkey’s Turquoise Coast, is only 15 minutes’ drive from the package holiday hotspot of Ölüdeniz but is a more gentle base. It’s surrounded by wheatfields, rather than jet skis, and ancient ruins rather than noisy bars. Children will enjoy exploring the cobbled lanes and empty houses of the neighbouring ghost village, forcibly abandoned by its Greek inhabitants in 1926. And while hiking the Lycian Way and Saklikent gorge are big draws for older visitors, the waters that give this coast its nickname are likely to be a bigger hit with small children. Go snorkeling or swimming off Ölüdeniz and Patara beaches, take a boat trip from Fethiye, or hire paddleboards or kayaks and explore quiet coves.
Where to stay
Camping isn’t particularly appealing in temperatures that can reach 40C in July and August, but the four yurts at Avalon Steppes come with air-con. Bigger than your average hotel room, with proper beds and private bathrooms, the yurts also share a swimming pool, children’s play area and restaurant.
Yurts for two adults and two children under 10 cost from £55 a night B&B, +90 532 447 4754, avalonsteppes.com

Carinthia, Austria

Apartment at the Old Sawmill

This sunny pocket of the eastern Alps is often overlooked by Brits, but kids who enjoy mountain biking, swimming and mucking about outdoors will love Carinthia’s surprisingly warm lakes and mountain trails. Its largest lake, Wörthersee, is the closest the area gets to a honeypot, with Europe’s largest lakeside beach at Klagenfurt at its eastern end. Ossiach lake, to the west, has Carinthia’s longest water slide, and Klopeiner lake, to the east, has the region’s warmest water (it’s said to hit 28C in summer).
Where to stay
The Old Sawmill on Weissensee lake is home to four luxuriously modern, timber apartments. Sleeping between two and seven, they each come with a balcony and panoramic lake and mountain views. Baby kit can be arranged, from cots to socket covers, and there’s a swing, wendy house and a goal kit in the garden.
From €805 a week for two adults and two under-sevens (€10 a day for each older child), no phone, ferienwohnung-weissensee.at

Friesland, Netherlands

Landal Esonstad, a holiday park that looks like a giant model village. Photograph: Alamy

If you prefer cycling to beach volleyball, and rosy cheeks to sunburnt ones, try a holiday around the Lauwersmeer national park in the northern Friesland province. With syrupy stroopwafels to eat and windmills to gawp at, the children will feel like they’re in a different country but you won’t have to worry about excessive heat – or long journeys. Wildlife is the big thing here. The Wadden Sea is a biologically rich Unesco world heritage site that stretches into Germany and Denmark and offers plenty of scope for gentle cycling trips, walks and kite-flying. Inland, there’s Groningen for canal tours and pancakes, and the Adfunturepark in Dokkum for rope bridges and zipwires.
Where to stay
Looking like a giant model village, Landal Esonstad, on the banks of a manmade lagoon near the village of Anjum, is a holiday park with a range of accommodation, from gabled houses to waterside lodges. There’s a soft play area, a swimming pool, and watersports and cycling facilities. Ferries run to nearby Schiermonnikoog island, a national park with cycle tracks, lighthouse and beaches.
Two-bedroom apartment from €219 a week, +31 70 300 3506, landal.com

This article was amended on 19 May 2015. An earlier version of the first item on Portugal was headed Alentejo, rather than Western Algarve.

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