Europe - Spanish Med Coast

Looking to spend a week in July on Med Coast - did Italy / Greek Isles last year thought might try Spain ths year.

Would love to hear about FT members experiences at their favourite Spanish Med Coast cities / resorts / hotels?

If not Spain your thoughts on alternative countries / cities / locations?

Prefer good beach but also want decent onsite pool too if possible - good restaurants / night life also.

Thanks in advance.

This might be easier to answer if you provided more info about yourself - are you going alone, with a significant other, with a group? What's your age? Hetero/homo? Nationality, and do you speak Spanish? What kind of nightlife are you looking for - local bars and restaurants, or a hard-core club scene? Knowing things like that would be helpful for giving you worthwhile suggestions.

OK thanks for that - 50yo Australian male travelling with wife - definitely straight - neither speak Spanish - love beaches - love food - love good wine - love grown up night life - was initially thinking Barcelona but am open to all suggestions.

Definitely spend a day or two in Gibraltar while you are there. Nice hikes up to the top of the rock, unique little colonial type place.

OK thanks for that - 50yo Australian male travelling with wife - definitely straight - neither speak Spanish - love beaches - love food - love good wine - love grown up night life - was initially thinking Barcelona but am open to all suggestions.

OK - that helps a great deal. Barcelona would be a definite possibility - it's a great city with a huge amount of art and culture to explore, and its size means that it's not totally overwhelmed by the hordes of drunken Brits who've colonized much of the Spanish coast. You could easily spend a few days there and use the city as a base from which to explore other places along the coast. Considering that you were already thinking about Barcelona, I'd absolutely recommend it - it's really a wonderful place, in my opinion.

Quite near to Barcelona (an easy suburban train ride away) is Sitges, a beautiful and historic, old-style beach town that maintains a lot of its character. The beach is OK, but there are lovely modernist hotels that ooze charm in the downtown area, and it's got a wide range of restaurants, upscale shops, and bars. It attracts a lot of foreign tourists and is also known for its gay nightlife scene, although from what I could tell when I was there a couple of years ago, it was pretty sedate and limited to a few square blocks downtown. When I was there I stayed here and quite enjoyed it: http://www.hotelromantic.com/en/romantic.html

One possibility, although it's not on the Mediterranean, would be to check out San Sebastián in the Basque Country. It's renowned for having one of Spain's most beautiful urban beaches.

If you've never been to Spain before, I'd suggest hitting up a few different places - if you're there for a full week, you could comfortably split your time between two cities. There's really a great deal to do and see in the country, and transit links are generally excellent. Maybe do Barcelona for 4-5 days and Sitges or another smaller town for 2-3 days, or combine Barcelona with San Sebastián.

Another possibility would be to go to the Balearic Islands (or even the Canaries, although they're not in the Med) - although I personally don't know those parts of the country.

Definitely spend a day or two in Gibraltar while you are there. Nice hikes up to the top of the rock, unique little colonial type place.

Meh, I'd say Gibraltar is one of those places you go to in order to say you've done it. It's interesting as a historic and political anomaly, and the apes are entertaining if that's your thing, but it's not really worth more than a day, in my opinion. It's basically a small English town in the sun with a giant rock next to it.

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Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

Should add intending to be in Spain prolly 9 to 10 days then Sweden 5 days then Denmark 5 days then back to Oz with SQ ex CPH.

Only downer is arrive into AMS early am on 20th - AMS arrival was brought about by J Saver redemptions on SQ prior to 77W / 380 access opening up for J Savers.

No biggie - I travel well - Europe kinda small compared to here in Oz so extra flt no prob - hell my horse paddock bigger than some European countries and I gotta walk to the back to catch my steed!

No biggie - I travel well - Europe kinda small compared to here in Oz so extra flt no prob - hell my horse paddock bigger than some European countries and I gotta walk to the back to catch my steed!

A real man doesn't have to brag about the size of his paddock.


Meh, I'd say Gibraltar is one of those places you go to in order to say you've done it. It's interesting as a historic and political anomaly, and the apes are entertaining if that's your thing, but it's not really worth more than a day, in my opinion. It's basically a small English town in the sun with a giant rock next to it.

Those are exactly the reasons I enjoyed my day and a half there.

We rented a self-catering apartment in Torrox Pueblo. Beautiful view. Cheap (and delicious) food and drink, plus wonderfully friendly people. This was over Christmas/New Years though so the amount of vacation goers was almost nil.

This might be easier to answer if you provided more info about yourself - are you going alone, with a significant other, with a group? What's your age? Hetero/homo? Nationality, and do you speak Spanish? What kind of nightlife are you looking for - local bars and restaurants, or a hard-core club scene? Knowing things like that would be helpful for giving you worthwhile suggestions.

barcelona has beaches, party scene, great food. do not bother learning catalonian to go to barcelona, or spanish for that matter. the only place we had a language problem was a french restaurant. the language was not spanish, catalonian, french, english or italian.

Thanks for your contributions guys - Barcelona certainly appears to be where we might head - just need accom now.

Apart from Arts Hotel and W Hotel any advice on other 5 star beach hotels?

Alternatively any info on luxury beach front apartments would be appreciated.

Thanks for your contributions guys - Barcelona certainly appears to be where we might head - just need accom now.

Apart from Arts Hotel and W Hotel any advice on other 5 star beach hotels?

Alternatively any info on luxury beach front apartments would be appreciated.

unless you want to beach, the arts & W are off by themselves on a beach. just as well beach on mars. or rehobath. actually, the arts is next to a shopping mall with a couple of fast foods, but servicable open bathrooms.

to stay in barcelona choose a 4 or5* hotel in or on the fringes of old town. we stayed here for assessability.:http://www.hduquesadecardona.com/
had a very professional staff. place was very quiet.

it is nowhere near as elegant as the photos, except the top deck, which is wonderful. the rooms were very quiet(street noise is a big problem in barcelona), and no drunks.

Meh, I'd say Gibraltar is one of those places you go to in order to say you've done it. It's interesting as a historic and political anomaly, and the apes are entertaining if that's your thing, but it's not really worth more than a day, in my opinion. It's basically a small English town in the sun with a giant rock next to it.

There is plenty of interesting history that stands up to visit by itself, not simply because YOU consider it to be an anomaly.

Additionally, Gibraltar is not 'English' as you put it. It is not part of England, it is not part of the United Kingdom either. However both Gibraltar and the UK are both British.

In addition to making sure they go up the rock, the visitor should also make sure they go inside the rock. The upper galleries (great siege tunnels) have been open for many years, but in more recent years a separate (mostly) WW2 era tunnel tour has been opened, but sadly it still shows only a tiny fraction of the fortress city that was built inside the rock.

i would go to mallorca.....enjoy the feel of an island.....cars are cheap....and its one hour across.....you can make nice walks in forests....look at great clean water green of sea....drive and see culture....ther is a roman fort...alcudia and formentor is breath take away experance....i did flat in april for 35 usd a day in 2010 it should be reasonable now aswell....tour caves....

i would go to mallorca.....enjoy the feel of an island.....cars are cheap....and its one hour across.....you can make nice walks in forests....look at great clean water green of sea....drive and see culture....ther is a roman fort...alcudia and formentor is breath take away experance....i did flat in april for 35 usd a day in 2010 it should be reasonable now aswell....tour caves....

I enjoyed my trip to Andalucia greatly. Stayed near Marbella which is a great city itself, with a very photogenic old town and lots of things to do. Nice parks, beaches, etc. Certainly no shortage of nice resorts in the area. Greatly enjoyed a day trip to Ronda. There are lots of day trips around there- Gibraltar is another good one. You could even cross over to Morocco for the day. It's a good balance of lots of things that make for an enjoyable vacation, I think.