we are thinking of spending 3 or 4 days in a European city- Paris, vienna, Prague, Naples, Florence or Venice. We want to then head to a beach somewhere for a week. If latitude is a good indication, the Greek Isles and Italian islands are too far north to rely on the weather. Where could we readily go? I have looked at the Canary Islands but can't come up with any other ideas. Our point of origin is Detroit. We don't want to go to far east on this trip from Europe so we don't have to backtrack on a 20 hour flight. Thanks for any and all ideas.

Steve

If you want a kind of beach weather where you can actually go into the water, your choices would be pretty much limited to the Canary Islands, Egypt (Sharm el Sheikh is popular) or Eilat. Otherwise, you'll see many Europeans going to the Carribeans.

Southern Morocco might fill the bill. Someplace like Agadir or Essouira. Still, in March I wouldn't even count on it being warm enough there to swim.

On the Canary Islands the weather is very good for the beach...but even in summer water is cold. As you are from Detroit, it maybe doesn't mean anything, but I am from the Mediterranean and the water here goes from warm to hot in summer But usually the weather is not good enough for the beach in March.
By the way, Canary Islands are a 3 1/2 hours flight from Spain.

Your best bet may be to fly from Europe back west to the Carribean or the coast of Mexico. Better weather and a shorter final flight back to Detroit.