I asked a question on Hostal Cantabrio (was that it?) that either no one saw or so far the person with the answer hasn't been by yet. I am kind of getting the impression that in Europe in general it is more difficult to put mom, dad and 3 kids in the same room...... for under 100 dollars a night. If anyone knows of places, in Spain or not, especially with a pool, I would appreciate the recommendation to put in my travel file.

Hi Gail, I often am stumped by posts because I can not relate. For example, in this case, I grew up in the U.S.A. and did not go abroad on vacation until I left on my own after saving up my $$$ and being admitted into a Masters program here in Madrid. Now that I live here in Spain, I am not yet married so I do not have experience in taking a family of 5 on vacation (not sure if I ever will as I plan to limit the rugrats to 2 ).

Using my experience here, I can tell you that in the case of the Spanish, most families stay in-country for their vacations since travelling abroad for a family here on a Spanish salary can be prohibitively expensive. Can't really get 5 in a hotel room in NYC can ya

Most of my Spanish friendsa have houses or apts. on the coast or in the towns that their parents are originally from and most often, those places become the yearly vacation destination.

Aside from being a financiall point, it is also traditional to go to the coast in July, August or Sept. when they have vacation.

Those who do not own a place usually rent an entire apt. or chalet for a few weeks or the month since hotels would be very expensive for such a long stay.

Take the case of my girlfriend "Ena" who is from Madrid. She is from a middle class family of 5 and, aside from their apt. here in Madrid, her parents own has a house inthe small town in Extremadura where he was born & raised. They also own an apartment in a beach town in Murcia (east coast of Spain on the Med, just below Valencia) that is a 10 minute walk from the beaches. So, needless to say my girlfriend has not been abroad much nor had she flown before meeting me. In fact, before I took her to England, the U.S.A., and the Canary & Baeleric Islands, she had only been to France on a short university trip.

When we do have a family here and the kids hit travelling age (2 months old right ) we plan to take most of our vacations abroad instead of doing the "Costa del Sol" or "Costa Brava" thing every year. Mostly because I want my kids to see the world and have some of the opportunities I missed out on until I was 24. Having my mom & dad in NY and brother and his family in England will make things easier financially, my brother just had a son a few months back (www.multimadrid.com/stork-o-rama) and we already have the first "summer kid exchange" planned. Can't have his son growing up speaking British English so when we get him over here we will knock some American English and especially Spanish into him .

As a family, we will have to renounce the month on the beach thing but I prefer to have a week or 2 abroad and then the rest of the moth here at home (Madrid ) than to have a full 30 days at the coast year after year.

Saludos,
jer...

p.d. Hey, now that I think about it, won't my kid(s) come back from England speaking "British"?

Hi

Just briefly - I'm in a rush!

We are a family of 5 (me and my husband and kids, 13, 11 and 6) and we spent 3 nights in August in Madrid in a perfectly good room in Hostal Cervelo - all 5 of us together. We had plenty of space and our own spotless bathroom + towells. We also had a TV and airconditioning, and had 24 hours access. The cost was about 12,000/13,000 pts per night.

After that, we spent 2 weeks in a rented house in Cantabria for about �550/week. There were seven of us there with plenty of space and 4 bedrooms etc etc. It was in a village, but we had no pool. I'm sure you could find somewhere with one wherever you wanted to be, but more money.

On the same holiday, we spent 2 nights in 'proper' hotels but had to have 2 rooms for the 5 of us.

If you'd like to know any more, just ask.

Hope you get sorted out and have a good holiday anyway.

Jo

Jer, my husband's Catalan family does exactly the same thing. House in the Pyrenees and another tiny one on the beach, Costa Brava. I have told my husband that maybe he should prepare himself for me not being willing to vacation the way he grew up. His sister was here in Mexico 2 months ago and told me she had never seen a hotel room with beds for 5 or 6. His cousin was here too and said she had heard of them and I would have to look a long time before vacation time, searching the internet and calling travel agencies. We hope to go home to the US often but I also wanted to visit Europe without having to spend the kid's college money. In 17 years of being married we have RARELY travelled when we visit his family. It is a different way of doing things. They told us that a typical middle class Spaniard will have a second home somewhere and that if they decide to travel they will either take a tent for longer trips or go for a week or 10 ten days maximum, if they stay in hotels and eat out. The way we dealt with 5 in a room Xmas 2000 in New York was to stay in New Jersey! Which makes me wonder if the same is possible in Europe, staying 45 minutes out of the big cities and finding cheaper prices.

Forgot to say that our daugher travelled from Dallas to Barcelona at 6 weeks. I was nursing and all went well, except that her sleeping got out of whack. But when we went back she slept 15 hours at night, so that was great. However, when we went at one year of age, I made the HUGE mistake and thinking she could just change over to Spanish formula in her bottle. She lost 25% of her body weight and I almost went gray headed overnight. A few tips for the future.