Coasts

WIMBLEDON and the World Cup may be over, but the Tour de France is still going – until tomorrow.

So if watching those Lycra-clad professionals pedal around Spain and France has inspired you to get your bum in that saddle, take a look at these two-wheeled getaways.

These five lesser-used trails showcase some of the most gorgeous scenery, away from the intimidating cycling crowds.

Better still, each trip has been designed with cyclists in mind and includes perks such as accommodation with cycling facilities, bike-friendly transfers and bike carriage.

MENORCA: This Balearic island is far from the well-ridden, high-speed routes on the Tour de France.

Instead you’ll be greeted by rugged coastal trails and ancient paths, including the 185km Camí de Cavalls.

SUN SAVERS

Our pick of the best ‘kids eat free’ deals this summer to help you save cash

ON THE ROAD

We gave up exotic holidays to travel the UK by van – and found £14 campsites

Translated as The Path of Horses, it was originally used by knights to patrol the coast on horseback in the 14th century.

GO: Seven nights’ self-catering at the three-star Tramontana Park Aparthotel is from £829pp including flights from Manchester on August 31, plus 22kg baggage allowance, bike carriage and return sports transfers.

Approximately £24 in tourist tax is payable at the property.

See jet2holidays.com.

LAKE DISTRICT AND PENNINES: The north of the UK is home to some of the hilliest landscapes, which means this trip isn’t for the faint-hearted.

Those climbs will be rewarded, however, with some of the most breathtaking scenery.

You’ll also tackle Allenheads, which claims to be the highest village in England.

GO: The five-night self-guided coast to coast trip costs from £895pp including breakfasts and lunches, as well as accommodation.

E-bike hire available.

See skedaddle.com.

DALMATIAN COAST, CROATIA: If dramatic coastal scenery is what you’re after, look no further than the Dalmatian Coast, where craggy mountainscapes offer sweeping views of a sparkling ocean.

Staying in the Šibenik-Knin region puts you within reach of some versatile routes for all abilities.

The Krka National Park is known for its cascading waterfalls.

GO: Seven nights’ all-inclusive at the three-star Amadria Park Apartments is from £629pp, based on a family of four sharing, including flights from London Stansted on August 18, plus 22kg baggage allowance, bike carriage and return sports transfers.

See jet2holidays.com.

LOIRE VALLEY, FRANCE: Worried about those aching limbs?

This Loire Valley itinerary includes spa time, so you can rest and recuperate in between cycle stints.

These very easy and flat routes will take you through charming French villages and sweet vineyards whose vines are dripping in plump grapes right about now.

GO: The four-night Loire Spa Escape costs from £895pp including serviced touring bikes with a pannier bag and luggage transfers.

Flights cost extra. See cyclingforsofties.com.

COSTA DORADA, SPAIN: There’s a reason so many pros choose to train on Spain’s Costa Dorada.

Roads are smooth and wide, with very few potholes, plus there’s a variety of terrain that means you can pick your difficulty level.

Weave your way through the wine regions of Priorat and Montsant or challenge yourself with the La Mussara climb that takes you almost 1,000 metres above sea level.

GO: Seven nights’ half-board at three+ star Medplaya Hotel Calypso is from £769pp including flights from East Midlands airport on August 17, plus 22kg baggage allowance, bike carriage and return sports transfers.

Approximately £22 in tourist tax is payable at the property. See jet2holidays.com.

Pining for the Latvian coast

Saulkrasti’s long beaches and scented pine forests are an hour from Riga on the frequent local train. The forests come right down to the long, long sandy beach and the relaxing and well-marked trail takes you the 4km from Saulkrasti station through the trees to the big dune and blue river at Balta Kapa. We enjoyed a July picnic in the forest and occasional dips in the Mediterranean-warm Baltic, before returning happy to Riga.
Bruce

Brittany’s cool sandy beaches

We went on a lovely family holiday on the Côte Emeraude in Brittany last August. It was perfect weather, in the low twenties. We stayed in an Airbnb in Dinard with our three-year-old. It was the perfect starting place for day trips to this lovely part of Brittany. Just opposite St Malo, but less touristy, it has amazing family-friendly beaches, crepes and cidre, fun street parties and cool sandy beaches. There are also great art galleries and markets. You can get to St Malo easily from Paris on the train.
Gaia

A Finnish beach – with volleyball and a sauna

I was lucky enough to chance upon Yyteri beach while cycling around south-west Finland last summer. I intended to spend a day there resting from the saddle but found it so relaxing and uplifting I stayed a week. Being around 3km long meant the sands were never crowded. I was asked to join a local beach volleyball team who then invited me for a sardine, song and sauna evening later on! The beach is also right next to the Yyteri nature trail, which had spectacular sand dunes. Impromptu swim and song parties start at midnight as the sun sets – don’t be afraid of joining in!
Pete

Exploring the far north-east of Norway

In June, I spent a week way up in Varangerfjord in north-east Norway with four friends, where we took a 10-minute boat trip to the island of Hornøya (booking required, from £95 per person with Explore 70 Degrees or Skua Nature). Another day trip involved taking the road leading north to the abandoned fishing village of Hamningberg with its pristine timber homes, left untouched by German troops in the second world war as they retreated in 1945. The village became deserted in the 1960s as fishing from its small harbour became unviable and there are free-roaming reindeer along the roadsides. And in Vardø itself is the magnificent Steilneset Memorial commemorating the 91 people, mostly women, burned at the stake for witchcraft in 1621.
Natalie Keene

A family beach break in Poland

My kids and I spent a glorious week in Poland last August, enjoying the fine white sand beaches of Sopot, a 20-minute train or taxi ride from the beautiful Hanseatic city of Gdansk. We enjoyed strolling the Sopot pier (the longest wooden pier in Europe at 511.5 metres) and sampling pierogi on Monte Cassino Street, with its crooked house. OK, the Baltic Sea was a bit “refreshing”, but it was a small price to pay for such a fun (and good value) beach break.
Kate

Spectacular vistas on Donegal shores, Ireland

If you want quiet unspoilt beaches alongside spectacular scenery, you can’t beat the Fanad peninsula in Donegal, where my father grew up. The Rathmullan and Ballymastocker beaches on Lough Swilly are long strands of pale sand. The road between them offers spectacular vistas as the lough heads into the Atlantic. Visit Fanad Head lighthouse before settling on the peaceful Atlantic beaches of Ballyhiernan. For somewhere just a little busier head farther west to the Gaeltacht village of Downings. As you travel you’ll be able to admire the lovely mountainous landscape affording views across the Mulroy and Lough Swilley estuaries and the Atlantic.
Brendan

Geothermal joy in Iceland

Although Iceland is expensive, we found many attractions in the northern town of Akureyri to be good value. Staying at Saeluhus hotel in one of its bungalows we had a great view across the spectacular Eyjafjörður fjord, which teems with whales in the summer. City buses are free, so travelling around town is easy. We found the Forest Lagoon to be a haven of peace, unlike Reykjavik’s more crowded Blue Lagoon. It’s a set among trees, with blissful pools, saunas and swim-up bars. Even cheaper is the municipal geothermal pool, brimming with activities. The city is walkable and friendly, dotted with cool restaurants and cafes.
Hannah Angle

Blissful rain in northern Spain

A workmate in Madrid came back from his June holiday in Gijón, on Spain’s north coast, and announced with glee that it had rained all seven days of his break. Desperate to escape the oven that is Madrid in July, we followed suit. Unfortunately it only rained on three of our days but it coincided with the Semana Negra literary festival, which was a great way to spend those wet days (including an interview with John Banville in which he detailed his hatred of summer!) It never gets cold up there in July, but one day it reached 27C and some of the daytime events were cancelled due to “extreme heat”. We stayed at the Silken Ciudad hotel (doubles from £300 for 2 nights).
Eve

Baltic beauty and Hanseatic history in north Germany

The beautiful Hanseatic town of Greifswald on the River Ryck is only a few miles from the Baltic coast along a well-kept path. As well as a quiet and extensive beach, the village of Wieck also features both ancient and modern attractions: a state-of-the-art flood barrier system; and the ruins of the 12th-century Eldena Abbey, which local Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich introduced into many of his landscapes, no matter where they were situated geographically. From Greifswald, the local train takes you parallel to the coast to the bustling port of Stralsund, with yet more majestic gothic brick churches, and a ferry across to the island of Rügen – a popular destination in its own right.
Barbara Forbes

Winning tip: soft white sands of southern Sweden

Sitting on the soft white sand of Sandhammaren beach in the far south of Sweden last summer, gazing out at clear aqua marine waters made me feel as if I was on a Greek island – without the stifling heat. The beach is on the south-eastern tip of Skåne province and offers so much more than swimming and sunbathing. We explored the nature reserve behind the beach, home to elk and a wide range of birdlife. The 19th-century lighthouse is open for guided tours and there’s a pop-up kiosk for drinks and snacks, such as sardine rye bread and sandwiches for under £5. The beach stretches forever up the coast and nearby Löderups Strandbad made for a great base – a peaceful seaside location full of white wooden cottages. We shared some mornings with stray elks and deer before heading on to the sands.
Nicholas

SAN DIEGO — Republican presidential candidates renewed their criticism of President Obama’s healthcare program Monday in a double-barreled assault from both coasts.

Standing before a “Repeal and Replace Obamacare” banner at a medical device manufacturer in San Diego as he opened a campaign swing in the state, Mitt Romney called the president’s policies “an attack on free enterprise, an attack on economic freedom unlike anything we have ever seen before.”

“We’ve got to make sure that we replace President Obama with someone who truly understands what it is that makes America’s economy work,” Romney said.

Decrying a tax on medical devices that is a component of the healthcare law, he argued that the Obama administration was thwarting the endeavors of entrepreneurs like NuVasive’s chief executive “tax by tax, regulator by regulator, regulation by regulation.”

“Washington is crushing the dreams, and crushing the dreamers. We can’t let it happen,” he said.

Rick Santorum, who has doggedly criticized the healthcare program his rival Romney pushed as Massachusetts governor as “the blueprint” for Obama’s law, made an unannounced stop outside the Supreme Court, where the first day of arguments were being held in a challenge to the law.

He called for its repeal and underscored what he says is a key argument for his candidacy — that he would be a stronger adversary against Obama in November.

“There’s only one candidate who has a chance of winning the Republican nomination, who can make this [Obama’s healthcare law] the central issue, a winning issue for winning the presidency back, and that’s Rick Santorum,” the former senator from Pennsylvania said. “The worst person to make that case is Mitt Romney.”

Later, in an interview on CNN, Santorum chided Romney for campaigning in California. “The whole world is watching what’s going on here in Washington,” he said. “Mitt Romney is 3,000 miles away. He should be here.”

Romney, who has defended his Massachusetts healthcare mandate as an appropriate statewide approach, brushed aside Santorum’s criticism by asserting that he was “not going to worry too much about what Rick is saying these days.”

Romney’s speech at NuVasive, whose chief executive, Alexis V. Lukianov, is an avowed critic of the Obama healthcare law, was a brief diversion from his main objective in California: raising money.

Over two days, he plans to hold five fundraisers headlined by leading figures in the state Republican establishment: 2010 gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, real estate mogul Donald Bren and former Gov. Pete Wilson.

Alex Spanos, owner of the San Diego Chargers, is hosting one of the fundraisers at his Villa Angelica mansion in Stockton. Dean Spanos, Alex’s son and president of the Chargers, is leading another fundraiser at the U.S. Grant hotel in San Diego.

His star-studded political events stood in contrast to those of Santorum, who will visit California later this week. While donors were asked to contribute as much as $25,000 at Romney’s events, Santorum supporters were asked for a maximum of $2,500. Santorum’s admirers may gain entree for as little as $125 at a dessert reception Thursday at the Alamo home of Ubokia.com Chief Executive Mark Pine. Hosts include former Rep. Bill Baker and tea party activist Bridget Melson.

Though Romney has built what his campaign views as an insurmountable lead in the Republican delegate count, his rivals have refused to step aside — lending greater importance to California’s June 5 primary, when 172 delegates will be at stake.

“I need you guys to get ready, to organize your effort, to get your friends to vote, to collect some money, to get campaign contributions,” Romney said in San Diego on Monday. “We’ve got a ways to go.”

A new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll showed Romney drawing the support of 42% of registered Republican voters. Santorum trailed him by 19 percentage points, with Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul a distant third and fourth.

Gingrich and Santorum acknowledged Monday that they were unlikely to pass Romney in delegates through the remaining primaries, but they said the race for the nomination would go to the party convention in August.

“If he can get to 1,144, he’s the nominee. But if he can’t get to 1,144 on the 26th of June, the last primary, then it is going to be a wide-open electronic convention for 60 days of talking among the American people,” Gingrich said on CNN.

Santorum, speaking on the same program, said the likelihood was that no candidate would accumulate enough delegates by the time the voting contests concluded.

“This race is going to — is [in] all likelihood going to go to the convention,” he said.

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maeve.reston@latimes.com

seema.mehta@latimes.com

Reston reported from San Diego and Mehta from Los Angeles. Ian Duncan in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.