Your Life Daily: A Happy Holiday for All the Family ; Get Set for SUMMER

SUMMER holidays with a young family can be stressful at the best of times – but so much fun if you get it right. So where can you go to help ease the burden and make sure you still have a holiday to remember? We check out three different holidaydestinations and offer tips on how to travel with your tots – and not lose your cool.

Center Parcs

TESSTERRSS: Tara Cain, husband Steve and children Daniel, four, Mia, 1 1/2 . VENNUUE: Longleat.

LONGLEAT was opened in July 1994. It is located in about 400 acres of beautiful forest and once everyone has unloaded their belongings into the accommodation, cars are not allowed on site.

The accommodation ranges from the basic comfort single-storey dwellings to duplex luxury lodges and are all set among the trees so you actually feel like you are camping out in the forest.

There are a whole host of activities you can book to take part in (from hiring bikes, to sporting activities, adventure trails and water events on the site’s lake). Or you can do nothing but stroll through the lovely setting and discover the residentwildlife.

On site there are a variety of restaurants, a huge subtropical swimming “paradise”, a supermarket, a sports arena, a lake and an indoor shopping plaza.

VERRDDICCT: The thought of stepping on to an aeroplane with two tired and excitable toddlers in tow does not appeal to many, so a British holiday is high on their list.

But where to go? For us it has to be somewhere the children will have plenty to do, it has to be safe and it has to offer something for mum and dad too.

Oh and if it could have good “green” credentials (our household has come over all organic and eco-friendly since having children) that would be great.

It seems an impossible task but Center Parcs has managed to pull it off with its four holiday centres dotted around the country.

We visited Longleat, where our comfort-plus villa was sat in a cove of trees and the view out of the sliding patio doors was of a forest floor with a lake in the distance.

Gorgeous.

Gathering pine cones entertained the children for ages while we settled in – all 10 of us.

This is a brilliant place for family gatherings and it means you can all share the cost.

We all hired bikes (with a pullalong buggy for the children) and had the best family weekend of bonding we’ve had in a long, long time as we struggled up hills, argued over routes to take and laughed ourselves silly as we all sat in our patio furnitureas the sun went down.

Center Parcs also prides itself on its recycling record, so there are “bins”

for all manner of waste and you are actively encouraged to join in with recycling.

There are plenty of activities you can pay to take part in, from horse riding and discovery walks with the onsite rangers to abseiling and sailing tuition.

Or you could opt to chill out at the Aqua Sana spa, a gorgeous purpose-build retreat offering a whole host of treatments. If you can you must try the three-hour spa session, a multi-sensory experience which entitles you to use all the different rooms,which includes a Finnish sauna, Greek herbal bath, Japanese salt bath and Turkish Hammam.

You can even book the children into the creche which is timed to run alongside your session.

Young visitors also have an action-packed menu of activities to choose from including soccer school, raft building and a teddy bears’ picnic.

All activities can be prebooked to avoid disappointment.

Of course, there is always the danger that the British weather won’t smile on you, but that’s where the subtropical swimming paradise comes into its own – a great place to spend the day for lots of wet fun, without being made miserable by the rain.

BEST FOR: Environmentally-friendly holidays.

DETAILS: Tel: 0870 0673030 or visit www.centerparcs.co.uk Short breaks run from Friday to Monday or from Monday to Friday. Week- long breaks run from Monday to Monday or Friday to Friday. During August prices start at pounds 709 for a weekend break in athree-bed comfort-plus or pounds 705 for a two-bed executive villa. Prices are per villa. Check the website for special offers, but hurry as they book up very fast. A spa session costs between pounds 26 and pounds 32 per three-hour session Adult bikehire is from pounds 21 for a weekend.

Feather down Farms

TESTER: Catherine Vonledebur, and her children Jude, six, Maya, three. VENUE: Hollings Hill Farm, Malvern.

THIS is the sort of holiday where you can really escape from it all and get back too something more “natural” in a stunningly beautiful setting.

In a market dominated by mass-market package holidays, this simple eco-friendly approach offers a really different break. Conceived by Dutch entrepreneur Luite Moraal, who brought Center Parcs to the UK in the 1980s, the concept has proved very popularin Holland, Germany and Belgium. His aim is to appeal to city dwellers looking for an ethical, eco-friendly break on a small working farm. Accommodation is in tented wood and canvas “cottages” and all are located on working farms.

VERDICT: My four-year-old nephew Tomas was the first to wake up at 5am. It could have been the cockerel crowing that woke him. Lying in bed, eyes closed, I can hear horses galloping in the next field, cows mooing, a distant tractor and the other kidsstirring… “Can we collect the eggs now?” the children asked as they open the carved wooden latch to my traditional Dutch box bed. This is our first morning camping safari-style in the foot of the Malvern Hills with my sister and her family. HollingsHill Farm is one of nine Featherdown Farms to have opened in the UK over the past year. Described as “the most unique holiday experience in Britain”, this isn’t ordinary camping.

What makes it unique is that our tent has a solid wooden floor, a large dining table, a candelabra suspended from a log, a wood stove, a cool chest and a vintage flushing toilet. We are pitched under a walnut tree, overlooking open fields and the MalvernHills. There are three bedrooms – a double, a twin bunk and the traditional Dutch box bed concealed in a carved wooden cupboard. The effect is rustic and cosy, particularly at night when bathed in candle-light. Oil lamps and ladles hang from the kitchenrail. It’s roomy too – like a Swiss log cabin with canvas walls. On arrival you park your car next to the farmhouse and take your luggage in a wheelbarrow to your tent. There is no electricity (part of the back-to-basics philosophy) and everything runsat a slower pace. Bleary-eyed, we put on our wellies over pyjamas (before breakfast) and walked to the henhouse for an egg hunt. Next we pop into the honesty shop where you can pick up a jug of milk – milked earlier that morning from cows on this500-acre working farm.

Breakfast over, we saunter down to the shower block adjoining the 17th-century Georgian-style farmhouse. Faye, 29, and husband Austin, 35, also sell locally in a boxed beef scheme and grow crops of potatoes – sold to Asda – maize and wheat. There arejust five tents on the farm and our neighbours are all families with young children. On Saturday afternoon everyone gathers in the field to watch Faye light the wood-fired traditional oven, where you can bake fresh bread. We opted for pizzas and garlicbread.

Once the oven is alight Faye takes us on a tour of the farm. This is the couple’s first summer as a Feather Down Farm – and they are booking up fast. Faye is down-to-earth, funny and welcoming. “So far we’ve had a mix of younger couples and families,many who live in the city, and want to get their children into the countryside. They want the children to know where their food comes from. “This is upmarket camping. It’s so new and unique – people can’t believe the tents are as beautiful as they lookin the brochure!” A great family-friendly adventure. There’s no faffing around with tent pegs and you literally, get a taste of life on a real farm.

BEST FOR: Getting back to nature.

DETAILS: Tel: 01420 80804 or visit www.featherdown.co.uk The farm is open between March and October. A stay starts at pounds 185 for a four-night midweek break, pounds 195 for a three-night weekend break and pounds 315 for a week, with a pounds 15booking fee and linen at pounds 5.75pp.

Hoseasons Villas

TESTER: Suzanne Jackson, husband Mike and daughter Ava-Grae, 15 months. VENUE: Kerleven, Finistere, Brittany, France.

THE Hoseasons Villas with Pools programme has more than 600 villas, chateaux, farmhouses and apartments throughout Europe, including villas with pools inn France, Portugal and Spain.

So whether you’re looking for a villa with a private pool or a luxury apartment in a smart resort, these holidays are great for all the family.

Suzanne and family took the Poole to Cherbourg ferry crossing.

VERDICT: Situated in a quiet residential quarter on the hillside overlooking the little port of La Foret-Fouesnant, our attractive and modern family holiday home was set in a large hedged garden with wide expanses of lawn, fruit trees and shrubs.

The description in the brochure was spot on and despite there being seven of us (including granddad, my sister and her family), we felt comfortable the minute we arrived.

The villa is a five-minute walk to Kerleven’s lovely sandy beach at the head of the bay of Concarneau – ideal for children, with vast expanses of white sand and a cold sea to prevent them for them from doing any more than a screaming paddle followed by afast retreat.

The villa had leaflets advertising local days out for all the family – a real saviour.

On the first rainy day we found a soft play arena full of every child’s dream toys.

Okay, it wasn’t very French but it kept us carlagged parents rested for a couple of hours.

We visited the historic fortified town of Concarneau, still a bustling fishing port and only a 10-minute drive. It boasts narrow passageways of beautiful crafty shops, creperies and sumptuous patisseries. We also visited Brest, an hour’s drive to the anincredible aquarium, Oceanopilis. It had the most amazing array of sharks, turtles and unusual marine life and the children’s attention was captured for hours.

There are also boat trips available to the picturesque Glenan islands from Concarneau and there are plenty of sandy beaches, rocky headlands and rock pools in this lovely area of South Brittany.

The local restaurants served the best moules (mussels) and desserts, but the self-catering in the villa was even better – with two budding chefs in our party we were pampered every night. The trips to the local supermarket were serious business – thechallenge, to fill our plates with the best fresh seafood and cheese that France had to offer and, of course, when the children were in bed we simply had to sample the local wine and cider.

BEST FOR: A self-catering French adventure.

DETAILS: www.hoseasonsvillas.com 08705 262 262. Or you can contact your local ABTA travel agent Prices start at pounds 486 for properties sleeping four in Normandy/Brittany for seven nights in August.

(c) 2007 Coventry Evening Telegraph. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.