Thursday, June 26, 2008

Santa Susana (Costa Brava) 2007


We flew to Santa Susana for the weekend in November to see if it was suitable for a possible summer holiday in 2008. We flew with Ryanair from Blackpool to Gerona and had booked Resorthoppa to take us from the airport to the resort. We have used Resorthoppa a few times for transfers and they have always been very good. It cost about £17 return and took about 45 minutes to get to the resort from Gerona.












We booked into the Aqua Onabrava Hotel which I highly recommend. The Hotel is on the main promenade, and has an indoor and outdoor pool, gym and spa. All rooms have a balcony and air conditioning and the Hotel has entertainment. We had booked on a bed and breakfast basis for three nights. There is also a snack bar in the Hotel selling Burgers, Hot Dogs and Pizzas etc.
The weather was quite warm. You could walk around in a T shirt, but it was not quite sunbathing weather or warm enough to use the Outdoor pool...






Santa Susana is not a huge resort and there is a train line across the road from the Hotel with regular services to Lloret de Mar, Barcelona and the resorts in between. The beach is a five minute walk under the train tracks. There was not a lot open when we went in November, but we just wanted to see what it what like. There are a few shops and restaurants in the resort and in the season (which is from Easter until October) there are stalls along the promenade at night selling arts and crafts.





The resort next to Santa Susana is Malgrat de Mar, and is about ten to 15 minute walk away. This is a larger busier resort than Santa Susana and has a few more shops and restaurants. We also noticed that there are quite a few camp sites in the area. As most of the shops and restaurants were closed in Malgrat and Santa Susana, we decided to get the train to Calella which is an even busier resort two stops away and has lots of shops and restaurants open all year round. The train took about ten minutes and cost EUR2.90 return. The tourist shops and restaurants in Calella were closed but 5 minutes walk from the promenade is the main shopping area with lots of narrow streets each filled with shops, bars and restaurants.





The area was quite busy and there is every kind of shop selling clothes and shoes to cheap tourist tat, but it was nice to wander round and see different shops. We also found a nice restaurants to eat in. We had a walk along the promenade and there were a few bars open on the beach. The trains run quite late back to Santa Susana so we had a few drinks in Calella before returning to our hotel. On the Sunday we had a walk along the beach from Santa Susana to Malgrat then found a cafe selling delicious ice cream on our return.






The food in the Onabrava was very good with lots of choice. I would definitely recommend Santa Susana, even though not much was open (we knew this would be the case but wanted to see what it was like!) we got an idea of what kind of resort it is. It is a quieter resort than its neighbours and I would say suited more to families and couples, but then you can have the best of both worlds as Malgrat is within walking distance and Calella ten minutes away. You can also get the train to Barcelona if you fancy a day away from the beach.

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