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Rini Hotel NotesA practical notebook of small hotels across Europe

Shelf II · Seaside Stays

Seaside small hotels and guesthouses

Guesthouses and small hotels within reach of European water: Sithonia, the Algarve out of season and the Basque coast at Zarautz, with honest euro bands.

Whitewashed guesthouse terrace above a calm sea bay with three set tables, a striped awning and fishing boats pulled onto sand below

Seaside rates are calendar rates. The same house that asks EUR 90 in June asks EUR 170 in the first week of August, and most of the skill of a coastal stay is arriving when the water is warm and the rates are not. This shelf follows three coasts where the small family house still exists: the villages of Sithonia in Halkidiki, the western Algarve between Lagos and Ferragudo, and the surf front at Zarautz west of San Sebastian.

Each note reports the season in which its price band applies, the distance to the water in plain minutes, and whether breakfast is served or better left to the bakery on the corner. Both answers can be right; the point is to know before booking.

On this shelf

  1. Sea front pension balcony at Zarautz with wooden shutters half open onto a long bay beach, surfers below and green hills closing the horizon

    Zarautz pensions under EUR 100 at the Basque surf

    Twenty five minutes by train from San Sebastian, Zarautz keeps a beach over two kilometres long and a line of family pensions where a double under EUR 100 hears the surf; the bar below does breakfast for about four euros.

  2. Old harbour of Nikiti on the Sithonia peninsula at golden evening with a stone guesthouse terrace, fishing caiques moored and pine hills behind the bay

    Sithonia guesthouses under EUR 90: where to book

    The middle peninsula of Halkidiki keeps the older Greece: pine to the water, studios with kitchenettes under EUR 90 in June at Nikiti and Neos Marmaras, and taverna tables that price the fish by the kilo.

  3. Whitewashed Ferragudo street sloping toward the Arade river with a small guesthouse terrace, bougainvillea over a doorway and fishing boats below

    The Algarve in May: Lagos and Ferragudo under EUR 95

    In May the western Algarve belongs to its residents again: guesthouses in Lagos and Ferragudo quote under EUR 95, the beaches widen, and the last hour of the train from Lisbon runs beside the water.

The neighbouring shelves, City Budget and Booking Tips, work the same method from other angles, and the way every note is written is set out on the about page.