This year we went on a so called “beach holiday”! Yes, a proper beach holiday in Spain with plenty of sand and salty water which comes at you in big waves and whacks you on the face with great force. What an experience that is! Even though going on summer vacation for over 20 years, this has never been done before in this family. For some reason it was not on our radar. However, as some would say, there is a first time for everything. The thing is, you need to choose the right moment for the first time to be good, and this summer was exactly the right time for our first beach holiday, and it was indeed very good.
In retrospect, the things you can do to enhance the experience of your beach holiday include: meet great friends and family on the way to your seaside destination; visit a holy place (such as Lourdes in France) and pray. When you finally arrive at the beach, consider going for a 5k run, or a hill walk (if you can find one in the vicinity of the beach, and if it is not too challenging for your flip-flops); or go racing in go-carts; certainly take millions of photos and send them to all your friends to prove you made it to the beach; read a funny book in Spanish, Las vacaciones del pequeño Nicolás highly recommended; when you get hungry have a burguesa, a pizza, or a churro dipped in hot chocolate; visit a city with great architecture (e.g., Bilbao) where you can also have a McDonald’s… and more churros; in case it is raining, or if it’s not, which is more likely, have a nice bottle of Spanish (or better still French) wine for a fraction of the cost of the cheapest bottle in Scotland!
Finally, you can simply go to the beach (as it is a “beach holiday” after all) to get hammered by the waves, dig a hole in the sand, walk along the coast, run along the coast up and down a few times to keep “the ball rolling”, or just lie flat hoping you will not get fried by the sun, in which case, you will certainly regret you did not take ALL your factor 50 sun cream bottles from Scotland, and grudgingly buy the sun-burn soothing cream at much higher price than wine.
We did all these things… and many more, and thus had a truly amazing time! The “beach holiday” was certainly worth waiting for. 😉