Questions about beaches & my itinerary

[Steph]

Hi. My older sister (22) and I (17) are planning to go to Europe next summer. We have about 3 weeks to go there..and this is our plan so far...
London (4 days-inc. arrival day), Prague (3 days), (Venice (2)-Rome?(3)), Beach Place (2-3 days), Paris (4 days), London(1-2 days)
Do you have recommendations for nice beaches in Europe? We've thought about St. Tropez, San Sebastion, Santorini or some other Greek isle (though getting there seems too hard), Barcelona, Ibiza, Palma...we really don't know which would be the best place to go. Would you say we'd have enough time to visit Venice and Rome during that trip or are we rushing ourselves too much? Would you suggest other cities to go to (not neccessarily as add-ons, but even as replacements)? Thanks..

Steph

[beergal]

Ok my fave beach in europe would have to be weston - super - mare!! ha ha just kidding
I had a wicked time at bora bora in ibiza completely smashed with banging tunes and the planes taking off above our heads....ooh the memories

I think it depends what scene your after any more specifications and i will try and help you out some more

Oh and Welcome to the boards

[JiveTurkey]

What type of beach are you looking for? Party or cool little chill beach town?

[TheJake]

Hey steph maybe if we knew a little bit more about what kind of beach your looking for... like where you are from and stuff we could compare for ya.

[Somnambulation]

San Sebastian would be a good choice cause its not too far out of your way and is just a generally good beach area. The beaches in Venice and Rome suck, dont go there for a good beach expirience. The beaches and water along the French Riviera are sunny and clean, but made up of rocks. Barcelona, along with having a tons of other cool stuff to do, has a decent beach although it is man made.

[Steph]

the beach i'm looking for...basically very scenic and pretty, soft sand, relaxing..but also with a pretty good night life...i'm from northern massachusetts..the beaches around me aren''t the nicest ones...so ya, basically the beach i'm looking for is a pretty one.

[U2fan]

Well, I've only been to San Sebastian and Barcelona of the ones you mentioned, and actually didn't even see the beach in Barcelona, so really only San Sebastian. I liked it well enough; fairly crowded when I was there, but then again, it was right before the running of the bulls. But it is really pretty, soft sand, good waves if you want that, and definitely tons of partying/drinking to be had at night. I don't have any pictures online of it but maybe someone else does

[omisan]

The beaches in Barcelona are beautiful, but the nightlife surrounding them really cater to the tourist crowd, which I wasn't super into. Still, one of my favorite places to watch the sunset (and the sunrise) within a metropolitan area.

I absolutely loved loved loved the beach in Tarragona, but as far as I know, there's no nightlife to speak of near it.

[Travel_girl81]

I think the beaches in Santorini were some of the best I saw. They are made from Volcanic ash so they had a red sand beach and a few different black sand beaches. It was really nice.
As someone else said the Beaches in S. France are rocky. At least the beach in Cannes had sand, with rocks in the water. Where as the beach in Nice was just rocks in and out of the water. I didn't go to St. Tropez, but I heard the beaches are hard to get to unless you have a car.
The sand at the Barcelona beach is nice but the water was gross. I wouldn't even go in. I saw too much garbage floating in the water there.

[Somnambulation]

The best beach Ive been to in Europe was called Cap D'ai. It is a stop on the train from Nice to Monaco. It had pebbles rather than rocks and the water was perfectly clear and blue. And it had cliffs you could dive off of.

[Ryder]

WOAHHH!!! hahaha, i stayed in cap d'ail for 2 weeks last summer! there are 2 beaches there, there's plage mala and plage marquette, don't go to plage marquette, go to mala(i might have gotten that backwards....i cant remember haha), it's better, i think at least. cap d'ail is the coolest place ever, its walking distance from monaco and 15 minutes from nice and italy. also, about 15 minutes away is a town on the italian border called menton, it was a really nice town and i really liked it, i went there with someone from the hostel i was at in cap d'ail, we went for the afternoon and i couldn've stayed for 3 days, it was really nice. also, right next to cap d'ail villefranche, it's another really nice place, the beach there is awesome!! the water there is like crystal clear and then there's like these giant perfectly looking bouldery things like 20 feet in and you can like lie there, haha it''s really nice, oh! my friend put has a picture of it,

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/anythnbutord...f92.jpg&.src=ph
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/anythnbutord...56c.jpg&.src=ph

and in monaco theres a cool beach in lorvotto, it's got this caffe and really good ice cream shop on the beach and these docks which you can swim out to and and cool pier, haha everything there is so much fun!!i love it and miss it so

here's plage mala in cap d'ail

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/anythnbutord...e97.jpg&.src=ph

have fun!!!

[Ryder]

oh! omisan, could you tell me a little about tarragona? it doesnt have any nightlife? i have to choose 1 place this summer and stick with it for 2-4 weeks because my parents are stupid, haha, and tarragona is on my list. the other ones on my list are

seville
san sebastian
tarragona
vejer de la frontera(costa del luz, on the coast west of gibraltar)
benmal somethin somethin, it's near malaga.....*looks up the name...* oh! it's Benalmádena, haha that's hard to say.

anyways yea, im considering those in that order.

[omisan]

Hey Ryder - well, i wasn't there overnight so I can't report accurately, but despite how pretty the beach was there, there didn't seem to be any sort of bars, clubs, or even restaurants anywhere near it.. In fact, it appeared to be a really sleepy town. I do know, however, that there's a bigger, newer, trendier part of town (it's got one of its own Ramblas like Barcelona) where there seemed to be a lot more University students hanging out.. Still, Tarragona's not far from Sitges and Barcelona, which have nightlife galore.