As the days lengthen, you may be contemplating Easter escapes and summer holidays with ice creams on the beach. Instead of an airport and car hire combination, why not try a different approach this year, and travel to a coastal resort by train?
With more tour operators – including Intrepid, First Choice and Inntravel – offering flight-free itineraries, rail travel is growing in popularity.
Market research firm Mintel found that 51 per cent of passengers who had taken a Eurostar train to the Continent in the past five years added on another rail trip. Three-quarters agreed that travelling by train made the journey feel like part of the holiday experience. Rail holidays require some planning, but that is part of the fun.
Starting with a Eurostar to Belgium, France or the Netherlands, scenic routes and fast-speed services can whisk you to picturesque coastal towns – here are 10 of the best…
Direct trains connect Paris to Barcelona in just under seven hours and from here it is an onward 40-minute train ride to Sitges.
There are 17 churro-coloured beaches lining the coast of this seaside town, connected by the palm-pronged Passeig Maritim promenade.
The sandy stretches give way to an old town dotted with art galleries, old-school restaurants (on weekdays Nansa offers a three-course typical Catalonian menu, plus a drink, for €20/£16.50), and a liberal helping of cocktail bars (try The Duchess for quirky, seasonally themed drinks).
The town hosts numerous events throughout the year, from carnival to Pride and a film festival. For day trips, there is the mountaintop Santa Maria de Montserrat monastery, an hour away, and you can head into the Penedès wine region for tours and tastings at the cava wineries.
Melia Sitges, with its airy room decor and sea views, offers rooms from £120
Sandwiched between Cannes and Saint-Tropez on the Côte d’Azur, Saint-Raphaël teams its beaches with a yacht-spotted, restaurant-flanked marina, an old town, sea-view gardens and a Ferris wheel that looks out over its bay.
Joining a boat trip to see Les Calanques de l’Esterel is a must. This crooked coastline of red-rocked inlets and bays, backed by the forest-furred mountains of the Esterel massif, is best admired from the water.
A visit to the neighbouring town of Fréjus should also be factored into an itinerary. A short walk from Saint-Raphaël’s marina, its statement sight is a second-century Roman amphitheatre.
The direct train from Paris Gare de Lyon (around 20 minutes by public transport from Gare du Nord) to Saint-Raphaël Valescure station takes four hours and 40 minutes, with around four departures a day.
Rooms at the four-star Unique Hotel & Spa, a five-minute walk from Saint-Raphaël’s marina, start at €90 (£75)
Thanks to France’s high-speed rail network, it can take as little as three hours to travel from Paris to Arcachon on the country’s south-west coast. There are direct trains from Paris Montparnasse from Monday to Thursday. Alternatively, longer journeys include a stop in Bordeaux. It is around 25 minutes on the Metro from Paris Gare Du Nord, Eurostar’s terminus, to Montparnasse.
Arcachon highlights include scaling the Dune of Pilat (which, at 104m, is Europe’s highest sand dune), tasting Arcachon Cap Ferret oysters at one of the huts that circle Arcachon Bay, touring the Winter Town area of around 300 19th-century villas, and catching the boat shuttle to Cap de Ferret.
The four-star Le B D’Arcachon hotel, near the beach, has rooms from €127 (£105)
Peering out over the English Channel on Normandy’s Côte Fleurie, Deauville is northern France’s answer to the towns of the southern Riviera, but with a lower price point. A 2km strand of croissant-coloured sand fronts the town, which is flanked by a wooden boardwalk and a parade of Art Deco beach huts named after the Hollywood stars who have attended the Deauville American Film Festival over the years.
Away from the beach, shop for charcuterie and calvados at the Place du Marché market, take in an exhibition at the Les Franciscaines cultural centre and go calvados-tasting at Père Magloire l’Experience, a 10-minute taxi ride away (tickets €14.50/£12).
The direct train journey from Paris Saint Lazare (10 minutes by Metro from Gare du Nord) to Trouville-Deauville station takes just over two hours.
A night at the half-timbered Mercure Deauville Centre from £85
The beach at Noordwijk, 50km south-west of Amsterdam, runs for 13km and is backed by Hollandse Duinen National Park, with its dunes and cycle trails. Rows of beach clubs, done out in wicker, wood and macramé, overlook the sands, serving cocktails, brunches and lunches (if you’re watching the budget, Tulum’s weekday lunch special gives you a juice, soup and dish of the day for just €12.50/£10.30).
Visit in spring and you will be able to add a visit to the neighbouring flower fields to the itinerary. Hire a bike from a company such as Lemonbike and you can cycle to Keukenhof, with its 32 hectares (79 acres) of tulip-, hyacinth- and iris-scented gardens, in 40 minutes.
The train from Amsterdam to nearby Leiden Station takes 30 minutes. It is a 25-minute bus journey into Noordwijk centre from there.
The beachside Grand Hotel Huis ter Duin, with its marble lobby, offers rooms from £133
From Amsterdam, it is an hour’s train journey to Den Helder and a 20-minute ferry crossing will get you to Texel in the Wadden Islands, where De Koog is the main resort and a convenient base.
Hiking or biking through the dunes and forests of the island’s 43 sq km national park tops the to-do list on a visit here, followed closely by taking a boat to the uninhabited Noorderhaaks island with its resident seals, and exploring the island’s six other villages.
Highlights include climbing the 35m lighthouse in De Corksdorp, sampling traditional Texel Hoornderring biscuits at Timmer bakery in Oudeschild, and tasting cheese made from Texel sheep’s milk at Wezenspyk factory, just outside Den Burg.
Rooms at the four-star Hotel Greenside Texel in De Koog from £159
The beach in front of Domburg, in the south-western Zeeland region, runs uninterrupted for more than 7km and the waters that break on to it offer some of the best surfing opportunities in the Netherlands – lessons at De Surf Club Domburg start at €37.50 (£31) for a two-hour session.
A cluster of beach clubs and sea-view restaurants – such as boho Oaxaca and seafood platter specialist Oase – line the sand, and the roll call of drinking and dining establishments continues in the town centre itself.
The direct train from Rotterdam to Middleburg takes an hour and 20 minutes, and from here it is a 25-minute bus or 15-minute taxi ride to Domburg centre.
Strandhotel Domburg has rooms from £92
This town in the province of Girona has offered inspiration to artists including Dalí, Hockney, Picasso and Matisse. Dalí is most present, with his picture featured at bars and his work commemorated at the Salvador Dalí House-Museum, where he lived and worked for 52 years.
It is easy to see why Cadaqués lures aesthetes: its cobbled streets are decorated with the bright flowers of bougainvillea and its whitewashed, red-roofed houses surround a long bay framed by hills.
Wandering around galleries and gazing out at the fishing boat-filled bay are among the simple joys of a stay here. In summer (20 July-31 August), the church of Santa María hosts a music festival with concerts and workshops taking place each day.
Following the Eurostar to Paris and a high-speed train to Barcelona, catch a service from Barcelona-Sants to Llançà (around two hours). Cadaqués is a 30-minute taxi ride away.
The family-run Tramuntana has rooms from £109
More than 7km of waffle-coloured coast await visitors to De Panne, Belgium’s most south-westerly seaside town.
As well as swimming and sunbathing, holidaymakers can watch – or even have a go at – sand yachting, a combination of go-karting and sailing that was invented in De Panne in the 1890s.
Climbing the Hoge Blekker – Belgium’s highest sand dune – and walking among the sea lavender-scented scenery of Westhoek Nature Reserve – dubbed “Little Sahara” – complete a trip here.
Or, for families, there is the Plopsaqua waterpark, where experiences include a 25m “disco bath”.
To get here, catch the Eurostar, then the train from Brussels to Ostend and hop on the Coastal Tram. Note that there are regular strikes taking place in Belgium that include the railways, although they have not affected Eurostar services to the country.
A night at the sea-view Hotel Escale starts at €113 (£94)
At more than 10km long by 50-80m wide, De Haan’s beach is the longest on the Flemish coast. It pairs its supersized stretch of sand with a district of Belle Époque buildings known as “de Concessie” and a handful of more unexpected sights such as the Villa Savoyarde, where Albert Einstein stayed for six months. To the east of town, there is a vast dune forest laced with walking and cycling trails and play zones for children.
Like De Panne, De Haan is on the Coastal Tram route that can be accessed from Ostend, an hour’s train journey from Brussels.
A night at the Vakantiecentrum Zeelinde, a short walk from the beach, costs €120 (£99) in high season
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