It is a little bit late for the reply, but anyway, as a Russian, I will ofc advocate Russia.)

The closest thing to You is Kaliningrad, a small Russian enclave on the coast of Baltic sea, squeezed between Poland, Belarus and Lithuania.

It has everything You will need:

a) A neat and clean European style city (formerly Kenigsberg, we took it during the WW2, Immanuel Kant was born there, btw) with many a historical place of interest (especially for Mohaa players - a city has a reach history from WW2, so You can actually learn quite a bit about those Nazis, Soviet and Ally dudes we are all shooting at ing.) and the oldest Zoo in all Russia.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad

b) 45 km from the city You have a seaside, there are two capes, or Spites, as they call them. The one most interesting is a Curonian Spit National Park. It is app., 40 km long and 4 km wide, with cold and salty Baltic sea on one side (great for parents) and a warm and shallow bay on the other side (great for kids). All that is adorned with the most beautiful nature You will have the possibility to see, longest golden-sand beaches I have ever seen (California, shame on You.), no people at all, delicious sea food and fish plates, decent smaller hotels (well, inns with stay, really) and low Russian prices.) Like, really low .))) This summer we paid like 450 Euros for a family of 4, for 10 nights with breakfast and supper included in a two-room suite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curonian_Spit_National_Park_(Russia)

c) The main problem is ofc getting there: its 2.300 km from Edinburgh, for example, but it is doable in many ways, by land, by sea and by air.) We traveled 2.000 there this summer, with two little kids and it was a nice two day trip in one way, with a stop in Poland.

I do believe that every country has its own beautiful places, I've been to a few and I think you can find nice places everywhere (I know, not quite really helpful :p)

As a Portuguese i have to say that Baatus suggestion is really nice lol... Portugal it's not a really big country but it has quite a lot in terms of diversity, from quite times in nature, forests, mountains, nice beaches, to culturally rich cities and towns and good weather all around, and nice people! Not quite sure about the "family part", but I think it would be ok with kids too, from personal experience, as a child i though it was boring to travel around with my parents for holidays but today I'm more than glad i did it...

Now that I've sold my fish (Portuguese expression for something like "now that I've expressed my opinion" :p) I'll go have dinner and maybe be killed by some of you in the server if I've got the time!! Cya

From the few places i've been, my favourite is the region of Algarve, in the south of Portugal. Very touristy, but also very beautiful.

The last one is the corner of europe, where you can be the last european to see the sun go down (dont worry , it will come back the next day)

EDIT: I just realized that my profile pic is me on an empty beach we found in the algarve :D, good times

dunno debbie , my brother in law lives in scunthorpe , that's not to far away from scotland . We always wanted to go sightseeing in scotland and ireland cause we like the mountains , castles and all of the old stuff , so much to do there xD. We went to kreta in greece couple of years back and that was without our kids , but now we have kids we would go there again , cause its beautifull there . lots of things for the kids to do , nice beaches , clear water (stalis and malia) .

you also can look here , went tru it a couple of days back cause we wanted to have a holiday to maybe , so stumbled on this website http://www.firstchoice.co.uk/holidays/family

have fun looking up the right holiday , take care