Town Is by the Sea

Product Information

For family stays: Set in a traditional 18th century Pittenweem house, The Crow's Nest holiday home is a short walk from the beach. Where to stay in Whitstable• For traditional stays: Set on Tankerton Cliffs The Marine is every inch a classic seaside hotel. Many bedrooms include charming features like fireplaces and freestanding baths. Set on a peninsula of the same name, 100km north of Lisbon, Peniche is a working port surrounded by sandy beaches and cliffs riddled with caves. Surfers gather here year-round because if there are no waves on one side of the peninsula, there are likely to be on the other. The most famous beach is Supertubos, which has one of the best surf breaks in the world, that produces curvy waves and hollow powerful tubes. There are also hidden coves to discover on Praia do Baleal, and Praia da Almagreira has fantastic dunes. Take a boat to Berlenga Grande, a wild island 12km off the coast, to discover sea caves and the 16th-century John the Baptist fortress (boats leave daily). It's also undoubtedly one of the best coastal towns in southern England and boasts one of the cleanest beaches in the country. But it has more to offer than its traditional, somewhat outdated roots suggest.

And suddenly there is Cagliari: a naked town rising steep, steep, golden-looking, piled naked to the sky …” So wrote DH Lawrence in 1921 on sailing to Sardinia. Almost 100 years later the city that made the writer “think of Jerusalem” is just as impressive. For family stays: A short drive from the town centre, Aberystwyth Park Lodge Hotel offers a range of bright and modern family rooms all with private bathrooms. Told as a ‘day in the life’ of a boy living in a 1950’s coastal mining town, this expansive, airy book is full of the sights and smells of summer. From my house, I can see the sea, says our young narrator, and so can we - sparkling in the sunshine beyond the family’s kitchen window. Light streams through the open door and silhouetted against it is Father, off to join the other miners on their way to work. The boy spends his day roaming the clifftops, running errands for his mother and playing with friends. He doesn’t forget the sea, though - how could he? Deep beneath it, his father is digging for coal.Please note that trends in the time series might partly reflect changes in the numbers of Facebook app users over time in addition to reflecting changes in population density. For this reason, the data are probably most reliable when used to examine the relative differences between areas, compared with baseline, on a specific date.

This quaint little Edwardian seaside town in North Yorkshire has homely pubs, quirky shops and a weekly farmers' market. Where the River Mersey becomes the Irish Sea, and industrial Liverpool softens to leafy, suburban Merseyside, there’s a town called Crosby, home to some 50,000 people – and one hundred iron men.For budget stays: Portree Pod is a one bedroom, one bathroom chalet/cabin with a private patio and sea views from the garden. For a cheaper dinner, Pizzeria Il Fantasma up the pedestrianised street does great pizzas and antipasti at outdoor tables. Of Poetto’s many “beach clubs”, one of the best is La Caravella, which does great things with tuna, clams and bottarga (three-course lunch €25), as well as pizzas in the evening (from €5.50). Volos railway station is close to the harbour and served by local trains from Larissa (38 miles away), which is on the main Athens-Thessaloniki line. From Thessaloniki there are trains to Belgrade, Sofia and beyond (the Belgrade route is only open this year until 16 September, see seat61.com). EasyJet flies to Volos (Nea Anchialos airport, 40km away) twice a week. Where to stay in Shanklin• For luxury stays: Somerton Lodge Hotel is an elegant Victorian house transformed into a luxurious hotel. The gardens are lovely and there's an excellent hotel restaurant. Where to eat Eat fish at tables by the sea along Playa de Bajo de Guía – try arroz con bogavante (rice with lobster) at Casa Bigote (mains €15), or in tapas form at the lively Casa Balbino.

For family stays: The Beach House holiday home in Crosby offers 8 spacious bedrooms as well as a private garden and terrace. Near the cathedral, Casa Nautilus is a converted period house with central atrium, roof terrace and 15 rooms, some with traditional glassed-in balconies (doubles from €59, room-only, but help-yourself coffee, tea and biscuits). Owned by the same people, the Spanish Galleon is more hostel-style (doubles with shared facilities from €35, apartments from €65). It has amazing views from its large roof terrace, and a new ground-floor cafe doing breakfasts from €2 and a €6 vegan lunch.

Find a Scheme of Work

The selection of restaurants are top-rated, too. Expect to dine on catch-of-the-day menus while you're seated between amateur yachties and other well-heeled clientele. There are good beaches too. As the name suggests, Sunny Sands is a golden stretch that gets busy in summer. At the bottom of the Zig Zag steps which run through the lush Lower Leas Coastal Park is the pleasant pebble Mermaid Beach.