We decided on L'Estartit and the Del Sol for our half term holiday after reading the comments on this site. Booking online with Portland,(part of Thomson Holidays s),was quick and easy, and we thought the holiday was good value.

The Del Sol apartments are fine - nice and clean, relatively spacious, with a reasonably sized pool. However, even though we went at the end of the season,the rooms were noisy - sound insulation is non-existent -(we could hear next door's conversations perfectly!)This wasn't an issue with the apartments almost empty, but noise must be a real problem in the summer.

The cooking facilities are basic - two rings - and the hob layout could be dangerous for children - the hob is part of a stainless steel unit, with no guard, that also forms the sink and worktop. My children never learned to distinguish between the hob area and the sink and almost burned themselves on the kettle a couple of times.

Out of season, Estartit is an odd place. The apartments are set on the edge of the resort and you have to travel through a few blocks of ugly concrete apartment blocks with shut up shops in order to reach the beach and resort, (ten -fifteen minute walk).

Most of the bars and restaurants were closed, as were the various children's amusement parks dotted around the back streets. On the whole this probably wasn't a bad thing, as most of them looked dreadful, but it was a surprise to find that many of the shops had also closed for the winter!

The main shopping area is a pedestrianised street just behind the beach road as you approach the marina. It's small, with very few shops and restaurants, most of which were closing at the end of October. However, we can recommend Cal Tet on this street, a tapas bar/restaurant, which seems to be popular with locals, and serves a good range of dishes.

The locals seem to shop in either Girona or Torealla de Montgri. The bus stop for both of these destinations, (you can't reach anywhere else by bus as far as we could discover), is located just to the right of the Tourist Information Centre on the beach road if you are facing towards the sea. The bus to Girona, which travels through Torealla, goes at widely spaced intervals, (11.15 and 2.15), and takes an hour to get to Girona, (return buses at 7.15 and 9.15).

We went to Girona by bus, which was easy to do as it stops in Girona's bus station which is just outside the medieval and main shopping areas. From this bus/train station, you can travel on to other destinations. Girona is lovely and well worth a visit. It also has good shops!

Back in Estartit, we were struggling to entertain ourselves. The beach at Estartit is large, and, in October, empty. The views from the seafront are pretty and the area isn't too built up, but once you've walked along the beach road once, there's not a lot else to do!

The sea was too rough to swim in when we were there, apart from a sheltered and very small area by the marina, which presumably is packed in the summer. However, we didn't go swimming, as the weather was too cold most of the time. The temperatures varied by as much as ten degrees C in one day, which meant that jumpers and jeans were needed as well as a bit of suncream! It was sunny and warmish at times, but dull, windy and cold at others. Fortunately the downpours only came at night!

We took a boat trip around the Ileas Medes on the Octopussix catamaran, (part of the Nautilus outfit). It was expensive and the sea was quite rough, but the kids enjoyed it. Unfortunately, we allowed ourselves to be persuaded by our children into buying plates that contained their photos! Next time, we'll just refuse to have their pictures taken - much simpler!

We heard, whilst on holiday, that Thomson Holidays are pulling out of Estartit because of visitors' complaints that there is little to do. Whether or not this is true, it does seem likely that Estartit wouldn't suit either people looking for a wild time, or those looking for charm and tranquility.

We were desperate after a couple of days to hire a car, but one wasn't immediately available. We then had to wait an extra day because the Thomson Holidays 's rep had, according to the car hire company, forgotten to confirm the booking!

In the end we had a car for three days and it saved our holiday. We visited Pals, a nearby medieval walled town, which is absolutely beautiful, as well as La Bisbal for the market. This takes up most of the town centre's ancient streets on Friday mornings, and is interesting enough for that alone. However, unless you are looking for huge elasticated pants, multi-packs of socks and/or shopping trolleys, don't go in the expectation of finding exciting purchases!

We visited the ruins at Empuries and at Ullestrat which were interesting and located in beautiful areas. Visiting Tossa de Mar was a highlight of our trip, as the ruined castle is beautiful and the tiny streets interesting to walk around.

Our most interesting visit was to the Dali museum at Figueres. It's nine euros for adults, but small children get in free. My eight year old absolutely loved it! I've always found Dali a bit weird and frightening, but he was ecstatic about the art and couldn't stop talking about it!

We also drove to the bays of Calella de Palafrugall, Tamariu and LLafranc, all of which are very beautiful. Whilst in Llafranc, we ate at a restaurant called Badia or Bahia, where the service and the food were good.

On the whole, our experience in shops and restaurants everywhere we went was very poor; there were numerous instances where we were either ignored or treated rudely, so our experience at Llafranc made a pleasant change.

This surliness towards visitors did affect our enjoyment of the holiday. We visited Cyprus in the summer and experienced some of the same treatment, so perhaps it's just us! However, the Catalan locals seemed to dislike all tourists, including the Spanish, with an equal intensity. Perhaps it was because it was the end of the season and they'd had enough, but it was still somewhat offputting.

Overall, we enjoyed our visit to the Costa Brava. The scenery is breathtaking, but you really need a car to fully experience the incredible beauty of the region. We wouldn't go back to Estartit as it had little to offer us after a day or two, but the people lacked the warmth to incite us to return to the general area at any point in the near future.

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Del Sol Apartments - Estartit

Operator and Date: (Portland Direct) Portland - July / August 2004