However much we try to imitate our Iberian counterparts by staying up late, snoozing in the afternoons, drizzling olive oil on our savoury nibbles, or driving with our eyes closed, we will never truly manage to throw off our frosty northern inhibitions and become like them. Because there is one difference that seems utterly unbridgeable: our respective attitudes to children. The British tolerate children, the Spanish love them.
Try turning up at a posh restaurant in Britain at 10.30pm with a table reservation and a handful of noisy preschool kids, and you’ll be met with pursed lips and hateful glares. In Spain, people do this all the time. And, contrary to the belief of paranoid British parents, Spanish children don’t all behave like angels. They run around, they lob bread rolls, they squeal and hide under tables. The difference is, nobody gives a hoot.
Funnily enough, the hardest thing to find for your children in Spain is a baby-sitter. This is not because nobody wants to look after them, but because there is not even a word for baby-sitter in Spanish (the closest translation is canguro, which means kangaroo). So, don’t bother — take the kids out with you, and enjoy!
- Unless stated, all prices are per person based on two sharing for a week in June
Beaches
SPAIN HAS the best beaches in the Med, and lots of them. Last year, no fewer than 450 Spanish beaches were awarded EU Blue Flags - indicating that they are clean, safe and well tended - more than any other nation in Europe. Greece was in second place with 378; France in third with 262.
Not only does Spain win the numbers game, it also has astonishing variety. There are miles of soft, toddler-friendly sand on the Costa Blanca, and dozens of great family beaches in the Balearics and on the Costa Dorada. If you can do without theme parks, fish fingers and inflatable crocodiles, head to the wild expanses of the Costa de la Luz.
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The long sandy beaches of Spain's north coast are lashed by Atlantic surf and hemmed by rolling green hills. The region has been ignored by tourists, but new low-cost flights are finally prising it open. La Guia is a traditional house, with sea views, in Asturias, within walking distance of the historic walled town of Llanes. It sleeps eight and can be had for £1,560 with Spanish Affair (020 7385 8127, www.spanishaffair.com). Fly to Santander or Bilbao.
Feel like pushing the boat out this year? Then rent a fully staffed luxury villa in Mallorca that comes with a butler, chef, housekeeper, maid and gardener. Casa Soleada, near Cala d'Or, has a pool with a built-in bar, landscaped gardens and a mooring in the garden where you can park a 55ft Sunseeker motoryacht. It sleeps eight and costs £12,705 (the yacht is extra) with A&K Chapters (0845 070 0618, www.villa-rentals.com). Fly to Palma.
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Few things are more exciting to children than sleeping under canvas, particularly when there's a beach outside their tent flaps. Camping Nautic Almata, on the Costa Brava, offers windsurfing, tennis, archery, riding, football, volleyball and a large landscaped pool complex - but is also a wildlife haven. The site is bordered by protected breeding grounds for flamingos and storks, and Canvas Holidays (01383 629 000, www.canvasholidays.co.uk) runs a Wild and Active club there, with nature walks, bird-watching and fossil hunts. A 12-night stay for two adults and up to four children costs a total of £1,051, including Dover- Calais car ferry and fully equipped tent.
Minorca's low-key resorts and safe, sandy beaches make it ideal for young children. Most visitors stay in hotels or self-catering complexes, but the island is also acquiring a stock of high-quality villas. Villa Romana, which has three double bedrooms and an eight- metre pool, is within striking range of the resort of Son Bou, but sufficiently far away to be private. It costs £470pp based on six sharing, including flights and car hire, with Magic of Spain (0800 980 3378, www.magictravelgroup.co.uk).
The Costa de la Luz has plenty to please parents as well as children, including some of Spain's best seafood restaurants. Base yourself at the four-bedroom Casa los Cantaros, which has a nine-metre pool and is close to the beaches of Roche and La Barossa. Book with Simpson Travel (020 8392 5853, www.simpson-travel.com) and you'll get a few extras thrown in, including a chauffeured transfer to the airport, cava on arrival, and the services - for one night only - of a local chef, who turns up to cook you a traditional meal. It costs £735pp based on a family of four sharing, including flights and car hire.
Ibiza is not just for clubbers, it's also great for young families. One way to ensure the kids don't get under your feet is to stay at Club Med's (0845 367 6767, www.clubmed.co.uk) beachfront resort, which has supervised clubs for children aged between four months and 13 years. A 10-minute walk from Ibiza's atmospheric old town, it offers windsurfing, sailing, tennis, archery and a circus school. An all-inclusive stay costs £949pp (ages 4-11 £743; ages 2-3 £401; under-2s £163), including flights.
Countryside
IF SPAIN'S coastline ever seems overcrowded, you need only travel a few miles inland to find some of the most attractive countryside in western Europe: mountainsides carpeted with wild flowers, hilltop monasteries, medieval villages surrounded by vineyards. Almost as remarkable as the scenery is the fact that so few other tourists seem to have discovered it.
This is partly down to the way tourism developed in Spain. The government encouraged ferocious building in small areas, but kept it away from the towns and villages where people actually lived. For instance, you need only drive a few miles out from Benidorm to discover narrow mountain roads that twist through pine forests. In Mallorca, you can leave behind the concrete ghetto of Magaluf and soon find yourself driving through olive groves into the picturesque town of Calvia.
Today, tourism has moved out of its ghettoes, with fincas, farmhouses and stone cottages reimagined as hotels and villas. In the Balearics and Catalonia, agroturismo projects have encouraged farmers to restore stables and olive presses, allowing tourists to experience Spanish rural life. So you can lounge in the shade of an orange tree, drinking wine and listening to the tinkle of goat bells, while your children feed the chickens or learn to ride.
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Casa Miralles is a huge stone-built mansion in the hills of Catalonia, ideal for a large family get-together. Tucked away at the end of a 2km track, the house has 11 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a games room, a 10-metre pool and 200 acres of private woodland where your children can roam freely. It sleeps up to 26 and costs £2,995 with Vintage Travel (0845 344 0420, www.vintagetravel.co.uk). Fly to Barcelona or Gerona.
Driving along the Costa del Sol, you might think the whole region has been carved up into villa complexes and golf courses. But turn inland and you'll find another world, a rural Spain that has changed little in hundreds of years. Take Casa Lorca, for instance. Less than an hour from Malaga, it is a handsome villa set in vineyards and almond groves, utterly secluded and with a private pool. It sleeps five and comes with a separate caseta, ideal for teenagers. Rent both and you'll pay just £650 at www.holiday-rentals.com (ref 12797). Fly to Malaga.
If you prefer the privacy and comfort of a villa but don't want to spend all your time cooking, you can rent a high-end property with a resident cook. Near the beautiful Andalusian village of Gaucin, Casa Gandolfo sleeps 10 and has a free-form pool, sunny terraces and a splendid high-ceilinged interior, decorated with antiques and hand-painted tiles. Rental is £4,525, including a full-time cook and six hours of maid service, with CV Travel (0870 062 3428, www.cvtravel.co.uk). Again, fly to Malaga.
Set in the rolling green hills above Gerona, Masia Sureda is a 17th-century farmhouse that has been tastefully converted into a four-star hotel. The emphasis is squarely on families: all the rooms are spacious suites suitable for sharing, and there's a highly rated restaurant on site, swimming pools for both adults and kids, plus a nursery, which each evening lays on four hours of supervised care for children over 2. The countryside can be explored on foot, cycle or horseback, and beaches are half an hour away. A week's B&B costs £400pp; under-13s half-price; under-2s free. Book direct (00 34 972 805500, www.masiasureda.com); fly to Gerona.
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The San Roque Club is a grand country-house hotel set in 340 acres of immaculate countryside on the Costa del Sol. The looks are refined (the main house was built for the Domecq family), but the atmosphere is relaxed, and there's an excellent children's club. Facilities include an 18-hole golf course, tennis courts and an equestrian centre. B&B costs £4,315 for a family of four, including flights and transfers. The children's club starts from £95 per week. Book with Scott Dunn (020 8682 5040, www.scottdunn.com).
Mallorca's charms don't end at the beach. For a true taste of the countryside, stay in the converted stables at Alfabia Nou, an agroturismo project near the town of Soller. Horses, donkeys and sheep roam the grounds, there is a large pool, plus great walking and horse-riding trails nearby. A B&B stay in a two-bedroom apartment costs £555pp (under-16s £149pp), including flights and car hire, with Magic of Spain (0800 980 3378, www.magictravelgroup.co.uk).
Activities
SPAIN'S RUGGED interior and varied landscape make it an ideal playground for adventurous families. Mountain trails, national parks, barrelling rivers and intriguing nature reserves are all here to help you answer the call of the wild. Plus, there is the comfort of knowing you're never far from civilisation. The height of summer is not the time to take the kids trekking across the sun-baked plains of Extremadura. Instead, head up into the cool mountains, or to the coast where you can mess about on boats.
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Why not explore the Balearics from the deck of a luxury 50ft yacht. Can't sail? Don't this boat comes with a skipper, so you can pop into Pollensa in leisurely style, sail around Formentera and perhaps discover your own secret Ibizan beach. A week's charter for eight people costs £5,300, starting on any day of the week, with Sunsail (0870 777 0310, www.sunsail.com). Fly to Palma.
Baqueira is an upmarket Pyrenean ski resort frequented by the Spanish royal family. In summer, it's crammed with outdoorsy types, lured by the fishing, horse-riding, canoeing, quad-biking, white-water rafting and the 200 miles of marked walking trails. The place to stay is La Pleta Hotel & Spa, where a room for two adults and one child under 15 costs £150 per night with Small Luxury Hotels of the World (00800 5254 8000, www.slh.com). The nearest airport is Toulouse; transfers are included.
If you're keen to take the children walking but don't want to be cosseted in a group, rent a house in the mountains. Casa Atalaya is a four-bedroom villa in the Tejada National Park Reserve of southern Andalusia. Perched above an ancient village, it has a pool, gardens and sun-washed terraces, and tracks lead directly from the house through vineyards and olive groves to rivers, caves and sleepy villages. It costs £800 with www.holiday-rentals.com (ref 16105); Malaga is half an hour away.
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The Pyrenees has sparkling lakes, 3,000-metre peaks and raging rivers: just the place to get stuck into a family adventure holiday. Explore (0870 333 4001, www.explore.co.uk) offers a week in the beautiful Aigues Tortes National Park - abseiling, kayaking, river rafting and mountain-biking. The minimum age is eight and you need to be reasonably fit. It costs £685pp (children £675), including B&B at a hotel with a swimming pool, flights, transport and a tour leader.
If your brood likes beaches but gets bored making sandcastles, head for the fishing village of Zahara de los Atunes, on the Costa de la Luz. Its wonderful five-mile sandy beach is the base for an action-packed family holiday with the Adventure Company (01420 541007, www.adventurecompany.co.uk), which includes trail walking, mountain-biking and kayaking on a lake in a marine nature reserve. It costs £769pp (ages 8-11 £719), including flights, B&B accommodation, three lunches, equipment and instruction, and the services of a group leader. Optional add-ons include horse-riding, canyoning, and whale-watching in the Straits of Gibraltar.
Fancy a family trekking trip through wild, open country? Make for the Sierra de Gredos mountains of Castile. Based near Avila, on a large country estate with a pool, you'll be surrounded by forests and granite peaks. Guided walks especially designed for young trekkers lead you along mountain paths to look for goats, wild ibex, and vultures soaring above ancient orchards. The trip costs £795pp (ages 2-8 £685, under-2s £105), including flights, car hire and most meals, with Walks Worldwide (01524 242000, www.walksworldwide.com).
Clive Owen took the family riding in Andalusia
Clive Owen, currently appearing in the film Closer, learnt to ride for his role of King Arthur in the film of the same title. He loved it so much, he took his young children (aged 8 and 5) riding in southern Spain.
“We went to Andalusia and the children had lessons in riding Spanish-style, which is really unusual — all about balance and centring yourself, and little to do with form. They got my five-year-old daughter sitting and turning all the way around while the horse was jogging. It was wonderful — they were fearless and loved it; they just didn’t care. It was a great holiday.”
Ray Winstone's having the calamari in Almeria
“To be honest, there was a time when I really got the hump with Spain. I was going to Puerto Banus quite a bit and it’s become like Bethnal Green in the sun. Then I discovered Agua Amarga in Almeria, where we filmed Sexy Beast, which I would never have found if we hadn’t shot there. Puerto Banus isn’t real Spain at all. Agua Amarga, though, is in a national park, a little village set right by the sea, populated by Spanish people — not English. It was absolutely stunning, the genuine article. It restored my faith in the country. That and Barcelona. I love architecture and it’s one of my favourite cities.”
