Family Villa Holidays on a Budget

Looking for ideas for your next family holiday? This article will give you some destination ideas that are ideal for a family villa holiday that won’t break the bank…

The ideal way to get yourself luxury family holiday accommodation at a price you can afford is to hire a big villa and share it with another family too.

Once you become a parent, you have to accept that some things will never be the same – like how you approach annual holidays. No more leaving things to chance and grabbing a last-minute deal to somewhere exotic. Now it can feel more like an exercise in strategic planning – negotiating children and adults’ holiday expectations, arranging flights that won’t break the bank, or finding enough things to keep little ones entertained on a mammoth car journey can all make the longed-for break seem too stressful to bother with.

But it is still possible to combine a bit of everything in a holiday, with enough variety to satisfy everyone – and renting a villa gives you the opportunity to indulge in a little luxury and give the kids plenty of space to run riot without other guests tut-tutting under their breath. Although the cost of hiring a villa may initially seem high, if you go for a larger one and share the cost with either extended family or friends you’ll be surprised at the value they offer. The kids have mates to play with, you have company too. And you get pool, barbecue, fantastic views and more.

Magic Majorca

Spain is an increasingly popular holiday destination and Majorca may be a sensible choice if you’re travelling with younger children. The largest of the Balearic Islands, Majorca has long sandy beaches and fun-filled waterparks.Aquacity claims to be one of the world’s largest water funfairs, and even has a small zoo and parrot shows to keep non-water babies happy. The Palma Aquarium is home to the deepest shark tank in Europe and holds four different species – blacktip reef, smooth hound, sand tiger and sandbar sharks. Qualified divers can jump in and swim with the sharks, should they so wish, while younger children who have tired of the marine world, can let off steam in the play area or large rooftop jungle garden.

Villas in Majorca come in many different styles, from the traditional finca or farmhouse, to the super modern, so you should find something to suit you. Sharing your holiday with friends with similarly aged children means that the kids will entertain themselves and you can share evening childcare with your friends, giving everyone a chance to have a little quality couple time too.

Villa Tomeu in Pollensa has five bedrooms and sleeps up to ten people, so will give you plenty of space in which to relax. There’s a pool, and grassy terraced areas equipped with a barbecue which are perfect for al fresco dining. Pollensa itself has several bars and restaurants if you are tempted away from the villa, and there are many beaches to explore.

Beautiful Kefalonia

With spacious gardens and barbecue areas, villas in Kefalonia may prove too tempting to leave. But if you do manage to drag yourself away, take the opportunity to visit one of the world’s most beautiful beaches – Myrtos Bay. Just remember to pack sandals as the sand stops at the waterline, and the pebbles can be painful on bare feet. Argostoli Town, Kefalonia’s capital promises a bustling town square, great shops and waterfront tavernas, so would also make a good day trip.

Villa Astria, just outside the picturesque fishing village of Fiskardo, boasts not one, but two pools and enough space to sleep ten comfortably. The smaller pool is perfect for children and there are terraced gardens as well. This villa is separated into the main building and an annexe, so is perfect for two families who want to holiday together but might enjoy a little more privacy.

Cool Corfu

Corfu offers many choices for family holidays, from bucket-and-spade to high action watersports. Head to the north of the island for shallower waters and family-friendly beaches, or the west for sandy beaches and watersports – including pedalos, paragliding, waterskiing or windsurfing.If the kids need some cultural stimulation, take a day trip to the island’s attractive capital Corfu Town which offers lots of shops for souvenir hunting, pleasant café-culture and several interesting museums including the Archeological museum which is stuffed with impressive Roman remains. Head into the interior of the island for complete away-from-it-all countryside and wonderful views out to sea.

You’re spoiled for choice with villas in Corfu. If you’re more of a modern family, with children of different ages ranging from young adults to little ones, Triton House in AghiosStefanos may provide the solution. A separate guest house with twin beds would provide older teens with the privacy they seek, while being close enough to enjoy the benefits of a larger villa – including the swimming pool and covered terrace to make the most of those balmy days. AghiosStefanos has bars and a busy harbour with yachts – so get your sailing shoes on and make the most of this seaside holiday.

My thanks for this sponsored post, written by Belinda Weber on behalf of luxury villa holidays specialist Meon Villas. All the villas mentioned above can be found on their website: www.meonvillas.co.uk

Useful links

Meon Villas – the luxury villa holidays specialist
Aqualand water park on Majorca
Palma Aquarium on Majorca

Photo credits: Palma on Majorca by Piutus, Fiscardo, Kefalonia, Greece by sisaphus, Beach on Corfu by mickpix

This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com – Read more travel articles at Travel Blog Home

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Naked? not me! – at the Abbey House Gardens in Malmsbury

I might describe the Abbey House Gardens in Malmsbury as a gorgeous Cotswold garden that typifies the English country style, but the name doesn’t always ring a bell – until I mention the Naked Gardener and there’s an Ahhh moment  ”Oh yes, I saw it on Gardener’s World!”

The Naked Gardeners are Ian and Barbara Pollard and they love to garden – well, naked. If you see their publicity material you find a couple of naked Adam and Eve style figures to remind you what you might expect when you visit and there are even postcards on sale with them lingering naked amongst the flowers and foliage with a leaf here or flower there tastefully covering the naughty bits.

I love the tradition of mildly eccentric English men and women who follow their fancy and do just as they please – why shouldn’t you wander around with no clothes on in your own garden? If you like the idea of enjoying this garden with the freedom of no clothes then check the Abbey House Gardens website for the dates of the Clothes Optional Days, although personally it never quite gets hot enough in the English summer for me to be tempted.

As we walked around the garden we came across the Naked Gardener, not quite starkers as it wasn’t the hottest day but wearing a loose shirt, that just about covered him up as he went to work on deadheading the roses. I thought it would be a little rude to point the camera (we English are so polite) so you’ll have to content yourself with lovely floral photos instead.

There are plenty of statues of naked statues around the garden, from the two masculine figures locked in a wrestling match at the entrance to the perfectly toned torsoes with a lizard running over their privates and ivy creeeping over them on the river terrace.

But don’t let me distract you from the general gorgeousness of the garden which is truly a labour of love. We took the suggested route through the knot garden with an Alice in Wonderland feel of yew and box hedges, clipped into shapes and a giant face staring out at you from one end. The ruined arch of the Abbey loomed just outside the garden and once extended right along the borders of the garden.

We moved on to the lawned area where the hedging traces the shape of the walls of the Lady Chapel that once stood on this spot and in the flowerbed you can see a medieval coffin that once housed the body of a monk who lived here. He was featured on the BBC TV programme, Meet the Ancestors, and apparently his skeleton offered clues that he was brought up near the sea and suffered from periods of food shortage throughout his childhood.

There are many more connections in the garden with the Abbey next door and the current Abbey House was built in the 16th century on the site of an older 13th century Abbot’s house, while just beyond the river are the Monastic fish ponds that enabled the monks to have fresh fish on Fridays. Under the apple tree you’ll find a statue of the Cistercian monk, a mysterious figure with his face hidden by his cowl.

In every direction you look as you pass through the garden you’ll glimpse vistas created by hedged walkways and arches and punctuated by statues and water features. There are the classical English herbaceous borders and when we visited the roses were still in full bloom, planted according to a rainbow of colour with just the odd misfit to keep things interesting. The gardens are a photographer’s dream and it is really quite difficult to take a bad shot, so beautifully has the garden been planted for form and colour with a  painter’s eye.

Past the Serpentine rose bed and through the old orchard with fruit trees dotted around that are used to make fresh juices and you”ll come to the sunken herb garden. It’s surrounded by a pergola planted with climbing roses and clematis and the raised beds are full of herbs that might have been used by the monks for their medicinal properties as well as their perfume, making a waist high mass of green. gold and purple.

Having worked our way around the gardens on the south side of the house we stopped in the small cafe for a light lunch of quiche and salad, waiting our turn while a very patient young man helped a German lady count out all her pennies of unfamiliar currency. There were tables around a pond with huge goldfish or you could eat your lunch inside a conservatory room with views over the back of the house.

Finally we made our way through the river garden behind the house where the ground drops steeply away to the river at the bottom of the hill.This part of the garden was completely overgrown when the owners arrived and it has now been planted with water loving plants and iris that flower in spring with a wooden bridge to take you across the river for a view back towards the house from the mound.

We visited the Abbey House Gardens in July when it was a riot of summer colour but I believe that it would be beautiful at any time of year with frost tracing out the knot garden in winter, tulips and colourful bulbs in the spring and golden foliage and berries in the autumn. And of course if you have Naturist tendancies, you can also enjoy the garden naked during the Clothes Optional open days –  although with the English summer being somewhat illusive I’ll prefer to enjoy the garden with my clothes on!

The Abbey House, Malmesbury, Wiltshire, SN16 9AS - open daily March-October

Find the Naked Gardeners on Social media

Twitter: @nakedgardeners
Abbey House Garden – Videos on Youtube
Abbey House Gardens – Photos on Flickr

More lovely gardens to visit

Spring flowers and romance in the Mirabell Gardens in Salzburg
A gardens open day at Emmaus House in Bristol
The botanical travels of Marianne North at Kew Gardens

This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com - Read more travel articles at Travel Blog Home

You’ll also find our sister blog with tips on how to build a successful travel blog at My Blogging Journey

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Bike + train = adventure in Copenhagen

One of the things that strikes you (hopefully not literally) on the streets of Copenhagen are the sheer number of bikes, three deep at every traffic light, parked randomly outside every building, constantly streaming by as Copenhageners go about their work and play.

But did you know that bikes are not just for getting around the central area of Copenhagen, but for getting out of the city for a bit of sea air, countryside and adventure? And what makes it possible is that it’s super easy to take the bike on the train in Copenhagen, head out of the city and then cycle about wherever the fancy takes you. Just take your bike down in the lift that you find at most stations, then wait on the platform until the train comes and head for the special bike carriages, normally at each end of the train. They’re clearly marked for bikes and you park your bike in the racks inside, then sit down and enjoy the ride – easy peasy!

Our adventure began when we hired bikes at the Ibsens Hotel where we were staying, got on the train at the nearest station of Nørreport and took the train to Klampenborg where we could just glimpse the sea between the houses. We could have stopped here, as many families were doing, and taken a turn around the deerpark of Dyrehaven where you can take a carriage ride, or hire ponies for the kids. Instead we changed platforms for the coast train and continued a few more stops along the coast to Runsted Kyst where we got off and cycled along the cycle path following the signs to the Karen Blixen House and Museum.

This is the childhood home of the well-known Danish writer, Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa, and the place where she returned after her coffee plantation in Kenya had failed and she came back to Denmark with no money. In one wing of the house there is a small shop, cafe and museum where you’ll see photographs and objects from Karen Blixen’s life, while in the other wing are the private rooms where she lived. Here you can wander around the elegant, antique-furnished rooms with lovely floral arrangements from the garden just as they were in her lifetime, with the Masai spears that she brought back from Kenya, the brass studded Somali chest that was a gift from her servant Farah and the Chinese fire-screen from which she picked out figures to weave into story tales for her English lover, Denys Finch Hatton.

We took a walk in the woods behind the house which Karen Blixen left as a bird sanctuary and where she is buried under a tall, spreading tree. Then after a cup of coffee on the terrace overlooking the small lake, we jumped on our bikes again and cycled along the coast road, admiring the beautiful, and no doubt expensive houses overlooking the sound, and catching a view of the sea every so often. We passed marinas with sailing boats moored up, grassy stretches where people had stopped to relax and arrived back at the beach at Klampenborg where we lay in the sun for a while, before getting back on the train.

Along this stretch of coastal train line, there are plenty more adventures to be had and by taking your bike on the train, you have the freedom to explore away from the stations, where a visitor might not normally venture on foot.

Here are a few more things to explore on the coastal train line north out of Copenhagen;

Get off at Klampenborg

This is a favourite stop for families at weekends, where you get out at Klampenborg and find the gates to the deerpark of Dyrehaven just outside the station. This former royal hunting ground is home to 2000 deer and in spring you can see the young fawns and there are horse and carriage rides around the park. You can stop for lunch at the Peter Lieps Hus country inn, where you can eat Danish traditional dishes or admire the old Ermitage palace in the centre of the park. There’s also the Bakken amusement park on the edge of Dyrehaven deerpark, close to the station and on the other side of the station there’s the beach where you can relax if the weather’s fine.

Get off at Charlottenlund

At Charlottenlund you’ll find the pretty park around Charlottenlund Palace which is not open to the public but you can have a picnic in the park or visit Denmark’s Aquarium that is at the corner of the park. There’s a beach here too and an old fort overlooking the sea with canons from the First World War and a campsite if you want to extend your stay.

Get off at Humlebæk

Get off the train at Humlebæk for the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, with sculpture in the gardens overlooking the sea and a children’s wing with plenty of family friendly activities.

Get off at Helsingør

This is the furthest stop on the coastal train route and takes you to the pretty medieval town of Helsingør, the location of Elsinore in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. You can visit the castle of Kronborg Slot built in the 16th century to ensure that taxes were levied on all the sea traffic passing between the Sound between Denmark and Sweden, only 4km across the water.

More adventures in Copenhagen

Our long weekend in Copenhagen – Podcast
In search of the perfect Smørrebrød in Copenhagen
Out of Africa and other Danish Stories at the Karen Blixen Museum in Copenhagen

Resources for visiting Copenhagen

The Visit Copenhagen website has plenty of information about places to visit in and around Copenhagen
We took the train using the Copenhagen Card that gives free entry to 65 museums and attractions as well as free public transport around the city
Thanks to Wonderful Copenhagen for sponsoring our weekend in Copenhagen.

www.flickr.com heatheronhertravels’ Copenhagen – around Copenhagen photoset

 

This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com – Read more travel articles at Travel Blog Home

You’ll also find our sister blog with tips on how to build a successful travel blog at My Blogging Journey

Don’t miss out – subscribe to Heather on her travels

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