DHS, not much advice there then! For the record I run a MTB holiday company in the Basque Country in the NW of Spain / SW of France, just so you know but I'm not trying to sell you a holiday and I see you haven't asked about biking so assume you're not looking for that anyway! This area is great for all sorts of activities and pampering. You have the sea for surfing, body boarding and it's great fun for swimming in the big waves. The beach in Hendaye is 2kms of sand but if you go to Hossegor there's mile upon mile of uninteruppted sand with pine forests right down to the sea; it's a wild and beautiful place. There's loads of mountains, not as big as the Alps but just peak after peak after peak. You have the normal activities, walking trips, horse riding, rafting (depending on season), climbing, dingy sailing, quad biking, kite surfing etc etc etc. Then for the missus you have San Sebastian, Biarritz and Bilbao just here so loads of shops, enough shops to make me dizzy and long for the quiet mountains! There's also loads of Spa's set up using the sea water some way called Thalasotherapy which my missus loves. The food and drink are something else too. It's not stupidly cheap and accomodation is quite expensive depending where you go. There's lot's of 'campings' in France which actually have houses you rent and have a pool / activities for the kids. Oh, people won't speak much English if that's a problem.
Anyway, just an area to consider if you haven't already.
My Basque missus gives me into trouble for telling everyone on here how good it is because she's worried we'll get loads of STW mountain bikers moving here 🙂
