My friend and I (2 women in our mid-20s) are going on a week and a half trip to Europe in late July/early August. We are planning to visit Rome, Florence, and Barcelona (in that order with flights already booked from US). With 3 days in each location (maybe only 2 days in Rome), we should still have a few days left over and would like to visit a beautiful beach. My friend has never been to Europe, so I want to make sure I pick a great beach town for us to enjoy for a couple days. We would like somewhere easy to get to/from, with beautiful beaches that do not look like what we can see in the US, like to have a lot going on in the town as well - either some historical/cultural sites we can visit or just a bustling town square atmosphere, but don't want it to be any type of metropolis. We are not on a college budget anymore, but also don't want anything overly expensive or lavish. We have considered the following, but are open to any and all suggestions! Croatia/Greece (I know this is broad, I have been to Split and Hvar), Mallorca/Menorca, Ibiza, French Riviera, Cinque Terre, Italian Riviera. Thanks!
Posted by
Long Beach, California, USA
3391 posts
Mallorca! It's a beautiful island, young hip scene, stunning beach, great nightlife, good food and drink.
Posted by
Tunbridge Wells
6113 posts
You are already going to be spending a huge proportion of your holiday in transit, so stay close to Barcelona for your beach element. I suggest the trendy Sitges, just down the coast. You don't want to lose another half day in transit.
You are hoping to hit a beach on one of the busiest weeks of the year, so there won't be much accommodation available and the beaches will be heaving. Flights will be expensive, so stay local.
Posted by
troy, ny
656 posts
If your trip ends in Barcelona then I recommend Tossa De Mar on the Costa Brava, about a 90 minute bus ride north of Barcelona. It has beautiful beaches with lots to do: kayaking, jet skiing, boat rides. The town has awesome restaurants. There is even a climb up to an old castle (maybe a fort) that is set in a beautiful setting of pines with spectacular views of the Med. I visited last year and am returning this August. Google it.
Posted by
Florida, USA
12172 posts
If you want great undiscovered beaches, check out the Costa de la Luz between Gibraltar and Cadiz. There are a couple of towns but it's mostly just miles of very sparsely populated beaches with barely enough services to get by. Tarifa is a much nicer small town than I was expecting and 26 km up the road toward Cadiz is a roman ruin right on the beach that gets few visitors (Baelo-Claudia)
http://www.andalucia.com/province/cadiz/bolonia/baelo-claudia.htm
There's a Jara River campground nearby if you want to go local.
Posted by
troy, ny
656 posts
Stay close to Barcelona if you are flying home from there. Hopefully Enric (a Barcelona native) will see your post and give you many options. He is invaluable to this forum when it comes to Barcelona and the Catalunya area.
Posted by
Barcelona (Catalonia)
2940 posts
Thanks for the praise Steve, I'm just blushing :))
I don't quite follow cehobbs style of travelling... rushing from one end of Europe to the other in such short amount of time, to me that amounts to too much time wasted in waiting lounges and on board planes or trains, but hey, everyone's got his/her own, right?
I can only agree with the suggestions to stay near one of the three main cities she's mentioning. If the chosen one is Barcelona, indeed Sitges or Tossa de Mar would also be my preferred choices for an escapade to a NEARBY beach town. Both are easy to reach by commuter train from Barcelona, one is southbound, the other is northbound, at less than an hour from the capital. Both do fill the requirements of having historical and cultural things to see and Sitges, in particular, has an also a very active nightlife. Expect, though, as most of the coast in Catalonia, to be very busy.
Note too that Barcelona herself has excellent urban beaches, she was named the best Beach City by National Geographic. The city has 1.6 miles of beaches divided into 10 beaches. Many have one or more chiringuitos at the beach itself, and at least one, Mochima in the Nova Mar Bella beach, becomes a quite trendy chill out in the afternoons in summer. They're also very frequented at night, especially the ones at la Barceloneta beach as well as the beach clubs in Port Olimpic (one of the four harbours of the city).
Ah yes, in case you've never been in Europe before note that we're far more open, especially here in Catalonia, when it comes to nudity, be topless or be full nudism. Topless is a common practice in our beaches, both by many Catalan women as well as fellow Europeans, that's why there are no "topless only" beaches. Don't know where these two young women are exactly coming from or whether they're used to sunbath in beaches were topless is a natural thing, but just in case they don't, now you know, so you're not "shocked", lol! You'd be surprised how many American women visiting say they're uncomfortable when they find topless is everywhere. Also, should you be interested, there's also a stretch of one of the beaches in the city where nudism is practised.
I can understand the appeal of certain other destinations for a beach escapade (Eivissa, Mallorca, Cote d'Azur, Cinque Terre...), especially noting your home is not 'around the corner', but again, are you willing to invest more than half a day travelling to another place just to return less than two days later? (and waste another half a day in the process!)