Let's create an Alphamummy database of best ever holidays.
Over the last few years, it's occurred to me that the best way to choose a holiday isn't to look through brochures and, to all intents and purposes, guess if you'd like it or not. Instead, you should steal holidays off your dear friends! It's a wholly non-abusive situation, as, if you've had a good holiday, you'll doubtless feel a wholly irrational pride that you've winkled out some superlative week somewhere slightly unexpected, and will quack on about it endlessly after a few glasses of wine. I recall once spending an hour describing one, single b-road in the Highlands of Scotland (""Have you read C.S Lewis's Voyage of The Dawn Treader? Where they sail across a freshwater sea, through lillies, until they find the Lamb of God on a tussock? I SAW THAT THERE!"), only to feel oddly rejected when my friend booked herself a mini-break to Barcelona, instead.
So let's do a SwapShop of Child-Friendly Holidays!
1) Paris for the day. Paris Plage, in the summer, makes three hours on Eurostar wholly worthwhile. Take a taxi from Garde de Nord to the South Bank, near Garde de Austerlitz, wander around the little park there, then spend a whole day strolling along the Seine, where the Paris Plage sees tonnes of imported sand, boules, ice-cream stalls and impromptu dance-sessions make the day pass like a breeze. You never have that "What shall we do next - I'M BORED" whining, because Paris is simply chucking new and diverting things in front of you every 200 yards. The view is never less than spectacular - Notre Dame, the Isle de la Cite and the Eiffell Tower - and you'll pass a dynamite second-hand stall selling books, vinyl and magazines, so bring a shopping trolley, as those 1950's Vogues are very heavy and will put your back out.
2) The Luxury Family Hotel chain. Woolley Manor, Moonfleet Manor, Ickworth, Fowey Hall and the new guy, The Elms. All have inclusive, day-long Ofsted creches, spa-treatments and dynamite food. I'm slowly playing Luxury Family Hotel bingo, and of the ones I've been too, can tell you that The Elms has the best food (truly some of the best meals I've ever eaten) and creche for older children, but little for them to do within the hotel; Moonfleet is the shabbiest, but the best grounds, and Fowey is the leaders of the pack - stunning Cornish setting - but noticeably more eye-wateringly expensive than the other, already painfully spendy, branches. All pretty much guarantee a cossetting break, though, and plenty of celeb-spotting. At our last stay at Moonfleet, there was both John Simm (The Master in Doctor Who) and Mackenzie Crook (the pirate who looks like he has rickets in Pirates of the Caribbean.) The kids all thought they'd been laid on as part of the entertainment, and were most disappointed when they both signally failed to kill anyone, conquer the world or scuttle a frigate, but just eat scones and get aromatherapy reflexology, instead.
3) Aberystwyth. God, it's an under-rated town, but if you've got a thing for rainy Welsh seaside towns, which we have, it's very addictive - especially since they opened somewhere half-decent to eat, the Ultracomida Spanish restaurant and deli, selling drool-inducing cheeses, sherries, breads and oils. We always stay in the Belle Vue Royal - a rambling old Victorian hotel which is in no way has the "modern sophistication" the website claims, but is right on the seafront, with huge picture windows full of grey Welsh sea and sky. You can spend a morning collecting interesting pebbles on Aber beach - the odd tides mean you get a truly exceptional range of colours and textures: I personally have a collection of grey slate pebbles with white lines of quartz running through them dating back to the mid-eighties. Eat a picnic lunch from Ultracomida on the pier, then drive to the nearby Ynyslas beach - a gigantic, flat estuary and beach - for the afternoon. Follow the tide out as it leaves behind sand-pools full of fish, crabs, sea potatoes and urchins, and then, when the tide turns, build a huge seacastle etc etc the usual beach stuff. Back into Aber for dinner at Ultracomida (believe me, there isn't anywhere else), and bed by 9pm, because you can't get Channel 4 in Wales, and there's invariably and perversly nothing on BBC when you're there. Also good: Galloway's n bookshop on Pier Street, next to Ultracomida (you can always fanny an hour away in a bookshop with kids on a rainy day), the Camera Obscura on top of the hill, the playground by the ruined castle with views out to sea.
3) Centre Parcs. Once you've finally reconciled yourself to the fact IT'S NOT IN A GIANT DOME, Centre Parcs makes for a very easy holiday with active children (no point in going if you've just got babies and toddlers; you might as well just go to a luxury hotel next to a small children's playground, instead.) Just make sure you TAKE ALL YOUR OWN FOOD (the restaurants there are appalling - truly Albanian) and your own bikes, as well - the amount they charge to hire them on-site will make you slightly ill. Yes, that means you'll have to fit the bike-rack onto the car. Sigh. Mummy bonus: the Centre Parc at Elveden Forest has a spa that makes The Sanctuary in London look like the tatty, over-priced, eighties throwback it is.
Picture: They look wrong, don't they? But yet ... 
Recent Comments