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Can anyone recommend me a nice place to go for a week’s holiday, somewhere in Europe (around June/July time)?
I don’t want all-inclusive or a hotel, would like either a villa or an apartment with use of a pool. Within an hour/hour and a half of an airport, close to amenities (small town for eating out etc.), and to nice beaches.
I’ll be renting a car so getting around isn’t a problem, I just don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere!
I’ve done Corsica (love), Sardinia, France, Italy (but only Venice), Menorca, Majorca and Lanzarote before, so would love Greece or Italy recommendations. I’ve found a few places in Peloponnese – has anyone been?
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I’d 100000% recommend Croatia. Would highly recommend:
Dubrovnik – we stayed slightly outside the city centre – much cheaper and v easy to get into city on bus. The most beautiful city I’ve ever seen, and surrounded by amazing islands that you can stay on/visit. Lots of AMAZING beaches up to an hour’s drive from the city. The cable car and mountain-top restaurant are stunning.
Split – another lovely city, a bit more night-lifey than Dubrovnik. Close to Krka National Park – breathtaking, the most amazing place. Again, incredibly beautiful beaches, totally unspoilt.
Zadar – Plitvice Lakes!!It’s easily the nicest country I’ve been to in ages. Dubrovnik is pricey (standard European city prices), but the other cities are cheaper. Food is incredible – seems to take the best bits from a load of different cultures (think Italian/Spanish, lots of sea food). The people are SO nice, incredibly welcoming. Has some of the most beautiful lakes/waterfalls I’ve ever seen. We rented a car and driving was pretty easy, not as terrifying as Spain!
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A lot of my friends have rented things off Air B’n’B, and have always been happy. Can’t tell you where, though, off the top of my head, and I doub’t that I could rustle up addresses for you, now, either.
In the past, I’ve bought a plane ticket to somewhere, booked a rental car in advance to pick up at the airport, then just driven off to rent a room or cottage here and there while driving around for a week or two.
Rhodes and Crete were wonderful. Take a pair of leather gloves as well as sunscreen and a wide brimmed hat.
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I was just coming on to say Croatia too! We have just been for the fourth time and love it. If you are careful about where you eat/stay, it can also be pretty cheap.
We just came back from Split/Trogir/Vis/Brac over a four-day stay so you can really get about on the ferries in not too much time.
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I would say Croatia too!! We stayed in Slano, a gorgeous little village 1 hour north of Dubrovnik – we rented a private apartment overlooking a beautiful bay – 10 mins walk to the shops and resturants situated at each end of the bay, there are some lovely places to visit such as Ston with it’s amazing city walls, pop over the border into Bosnia and see the caves – take your passport, you’ll need it to cross the border…and Dubrovnik is a day trip with a bus leaving Slano every hour – saves a fortune on parking in the city!!
Another alternative is Slovenia, beautiful, beautiful country, we stayed just outside Bovec, amazing mountain scenery and lots of water sports on the river in the summer, wonderful friendly people and not as touristy as Italy or Greece!!
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Also about to recommend Croatia or Montenegro.
Vis is a beautiful island and not as touristy as Hvar, Mlijet etc, but best to get a car to get around. The beaches are mostly pebbly but so pretty, and there’s no nightlife, just little restaurants. Easy ferry from Split.
Also loved Montenegro – much cheaper than Croatia and it is stunning! It gets a lot less cruise ship passengers than Croatia too – Dubrovnik was totally overrun when we were there. The old town of Kotor is lovely, and there are plenty of places to stay around the bay of Kotor. There’s also Budva, you could split your time between the 2.
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Depending on how important beaches are to you, Madeira is wonderful. I had a brilliant time, kayaking, hiking, snorkelling, motorbiking, general exploring. I stayed outside it but Funchal was a lovely town to explore, eat out etc. I prefer adventure and spectacular scenery to lounging on the beach so didn’t mind that the coastline is pretty rugged.
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Madeira is very nice, but make sure you get a flight on a big plane direct from the UK. Don’t be tempted to save a few quid by flying to Lisbon then getting a connecting flight with TAP.
TAP runs smaller planes on that route, and with pilots who don’t know how to land in strong winds, and Madeira is very prone to them. And the staff at Lisbon airport are absolutely clueless; they hide behind “we don’t work for TAP, so we don’t know”… in fact, they work for Groundforce, which is a subsidiary of TAP. But they still claim that TAP gives them no information. Which may be true, and as people they are nice enough, but as to use the word “organisation” to describe either TAP or Groundfarce would be overly charitable.
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I think everywhere on Crete is wonderful. The one thing to watch out for is the transliteration of place names, and how signs are written. Many signs are still in the style from before the spelling reform, so the Greek name on a map might not exactly match the name on a road sign, but that’s mostly a question of accent marks above letters. Transliterations can be more different, depending on the age of your maps.
The Greek Ηράκλειο can be Heraklion on one map and Iraklio on another; Χανιά can be Chania, Hania, Candia (but you need a really old map to find that name). It’s really worthwhile learning how to read Greek and pronounce it, even to be able to ask for directions in English, so that you get place names correct. It’s not too hard, and many of the letters should already be familiar from maths and physics.
We rented a car at Heraklion. I think that we drove west as far as Chania, then back towards Heraklion and stopped overnight at Rethymno, before driving south through Armeni and Spili to the south. We visited several places along the south coast, working eastwards. I remember the names of Ierapetra, Kato Zakros, Palikastro, Vai, Sytia, Agios Nikolaos, Eloundas, and then I think back to Heraklion.
The interior of Crete as I remember it was dotted with olive groves with grain growing between the trees, vineyards, and small towns and villages. The west was less developed than the east.
The people everywhere were friendly and welcoming. Those working in tourism all spoke good enough English. Away from the tourist areas I met a few people who had moved to Germany for work, and come back after twenty years there, so they spoke what to me sounded like perfect German and no English at all.
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