Late beach escapes: £100 trips from London

Alicante is possibly the easiest weekend here to get right. The castle sits directly above the beach and the old town is squeezed between them, so you do not spend half the trip moving between attractions. The flight lands late, so treat Friday as positioning rather than sightseeing. On Saturday, go up to Santa Bárbara Castle before the day gets properly hot, walk back down towards Postiguet Beach and save the Explanada de España for the evening. A small local oddity worth noticing: the wave-pattern promenade is made from millions of marble tiles, which is an absurd amount of effort for a pavement. MyEscapePlan also surfaced a couple of bookable ideas worth a look: Alicante Tour: Full City, Castle, Market & Tapas Experience and Alicante Hidden Corners: Walking Tour with Photos Included. Check the live times before booking because availability can move.

Faro works best if you resist the instinct to land and immediately leave for another Algarve resort. The old walled centre is small, the cathedral tower gives you the lagoon view, and then the interesting part starts offshore. The Ria Formosa is a maze of islands, sandbars and channels, so a beach day here can begin with a ferry or a boat rather than a walk down a resort strip. Do one water-based trip and leave the rest of the weekend loose. MyEscapePlan also surfaced a couple of bookable ideas worth a look: Half Day Walking Tour in Ria Formosa Nature Park and Dolphin watching and wildlife from Faro. Check the live times before booking because availability can move.

Palma is another one where Friday night barely counts. Treat the arrival as putting yourself in position for Saturday, then start with an ensaimada and coffee, see the cathedral while you still have patience for sightseeing and head towards the water. You do not automatically need a rental car just because you landed on Mallorca: Palma has its own beaches and swimming areas. Come back into the city for Santa Catalina in the evening instead of trying to collect another five landmarks. One bookable idea MyEscapePlan surfaced was Mallorca 4 Boat Rental. Check the live time before booking because availability can move.

Split's trick is that Diocletian's Palace does not really feel like a monument you enter and leave. Normal streets, cafés, houses and shops have swallowed the Roman complex, so wandering without a plan is the plan. Come out onto the Riva and head towards Bačvice. If people are standing knee-deep in water throwing themselves after a tiny ball, that is picigin: the aim is basically to stop the ball touching the sea while making every save look far more dramatic than necessary. For quieter swimming, keep going towards Marjan.

Bilbao is the odd one out, which is why it stays on the list. Do the city properly first: wander the old town, eat pintxos around Plaza Nueva and forget the beach exists for a few hours. The next day, use the metro towards Getxo or Sopela and turn the city break into an Atlantic beach day without hiring a car. Back in Bilbao, the Artxanda funicular is an unusually efficient trade: only a few minutes of effort for a view over the whole city.

Lefkáda completely fails the budget brief. We are keeping it anyway. The funny part is that the accommodation is not what breaks the price; getting to the island does. Once you are there, the argument gets easier: Porto Katsiki and Egremni sit under huge pale cliffs with the kind of blue water that looks over-edited even when it is not. Vasiliki is also one of the island's big windsurfing spots. Even if you have no intention of attaching yourself to a sail, it is worth being there when the afternoon wind arrives and everyone else suddenly starts moving very fast.