(Options: Garden Visits, Museum Visits, Antiquing, Spa, Opera)
Bordeaux, France - 6 nights
Available year round - Saturday to Friday

Enjoy an active culinary vacation in the southwest corner of France between Bordeaux and St. Emilion. You will stay at a comfortable renovated 18th century country home and will get acquainted with all that is French. We will customize your week for you - whether it be enjoying cooking lessons in French homes, market and artisan food producer visits, vineyards and wine tastings, antiquing, garden visits or walking and biking, the "Entre Deux Mers" region offers all this and much more. 

You will have the opportunity to taste and cook traditional and locally grown foods: produce from their gardens, wine from their vineyards, shellfish from their seacoast or mushrooms from their forests. Your hosts for the week are Carol, an American who has been living in France for more than thirty years and her French husband, Bruno.

During your stay you will enjoy cooking classes at private homes, delicious meals at restaurants and cafés, biking through the nearby vineyards and on the bike trail, indulging in delicious tastings and simply immersing yourself in everyday French life. This is a holiday that you will not soon forget!
 

SAMPLE ITINERARY

Day One - Saturday

After late Saturday afternoon arrival at the train station or airport you will be met by your hostess. After a stop at a sidewalk café to talk a little about your plans for the week, Carol will take you on a short walking tour of Bordeaux.

Then off to the wine region of Entre Deux Mers and your home for the week, a lovely bed and breakfast - a country home at the edge of a small village. In the evening you may go to a nearby restaurant at the foot of a 12th century abbey in La Sauve or to the Garonne for dinner at the river's edge.

Day Two - Sunday

Breakfast at home followed by a morning of cooking with Bruno, a French doctor and nutritionist who also holds a degree in French cuisine. Bruno is the founder and president of the "Confrerie des Medécins Gastronomes", an organization interested in expanding medical profession's knowledge of good food and good health. You will cook in his home kitchen in a little hamlet built around a water mill. He will take you through step by step for a hands-on preparation of Piperade Basque, Canelés, stuffed duck, or other typical dishes from southwestern France. Lunch, of course, is usually not over until about 3pm. You might want a little nap before biking or driving to the nearby wine mecca of St. Emilion in the late afternoon. You can stop along the way to do some wine tasting.

Day Three - Monday

Today you will visit the kitchen of a village baker and bring home some hot bread for your picnic lunch by the ocean. Your guide will drive you to the bay of Arcachon to visit the oyster beds, see the daily work of French oyster farmers, and perhaps hike through the bird sanctuary of Le Teich. Then on around the bay, stopping for a seafood picnic to accompany the bread you got earlier that morning. For those wanting to work off some of your meals Le Pyla, Europe's highest sand dune, is nearby and offers a magnificent view out over the bay to the ocean. After a full day of outdoor activity, dinner will be on the way home in a quiet little village restaurant. Another option for today is to spend it driving around south of Bordeaux exploring the wine regions of Pessac Leognan, Graves, and Sauternes and doing some wine tasting. You can stop along the way to visit Montesquieu's castle where he wrote "The Spirit of the Law" and then have lunch in the Sauternes.

Day Four - Tuesday

You can drive or bike over to Bruno's for another cooking class. As usual lunch will not be over until 3pm. So why not a little biking before exploring some great antique shops and wine stores in Bordeaux?

Dinner will be at Bordeaux's most typical French country style restaurant. On the menu: cassoulet, farm chicken cooked on a spit in the fireplace, or, if in season, delicious wild crepe mushrooms - a once a year tradition in the southwest of France with, of course, an accompanying wine.

Day five - wednesday

You will meet your cook, Stéphane, at the market in Créon. She is a delegate for the Italian Academy of Cooking in addition to being a wonderful French cook. After shopping for ingredients at the outdoor market you will go back to Stéphane's home, a restored barn with a distinctive modern flavor, in Salleboeuf. The typically southwestern French dishes are personalized by Stéphane: delicious fig tarts, salmon patés, stuffed veal or baby squid.

After lunch you have several choices: You may explore the landscape, some of the surrounding wine regions, the famous Medoc chateau and dinner at a country restaurant. Or you might enjoy just relaxing at home, and then biking over to a nearby café which was formerly a train station. You will have lunch with Claude, who runs the café and is, of course, a wine enthusiast. You can take advantage of the biking trail towards Bordeaux and, depending on your stamina, bike 22 miles (35Km) all the way to the Garonne river or stop after 6 miles (10Km) in Sadirac and visit "Oh, Légumes Oubliés" demonstration garden. It is full of heirloom fruits and vegetables no longer cultivated in most gardens. You might even do a little tasting (nettle quiche, chocolate covered "amour en cage", ...). Dinner will probably be in a small restaurant along one of the two rivers that give Entre Deux Mers, "between two seas", its name: la Garonne or la Dordogne.

Day Six - Thursday

On your last day of cooking Stéphane will ask you if there is any particular dish you would like to learn. If not, she will take the lead and have you discover more of her delicious dishes and easy techniques. In the afternoon you can go back to Bordeaux for some last minute shopping such as getting the unusual molds you may have encountered in your cooking classes. You can also visit some of the city's great museums or just wander through the streets of historic Bordeaux. Another option is to spend the afternoon biking along the trails and small roads of Entre Deux Mers. In the evening there will be a farewell dinner before getting ready for your early departure the next morning.

Day Seven - Friday - Au Revoir

Au Revoir - transfer to the train station or airport after breakfast.

**Inquire about additional itineraries.

A special holiday can be personalized for you with many possibilities for the week's activities.

GROUP SIZE

 A minimum of 2 participants is required to run this tour and the tour is limited to a maximum of 8 participants.

(The number of participants refers to how many persons are required to run the tour, not to how many persons you must have in your party. Please inquire.)

HOW TO ARRIVE

Closest Airports: Bordeaux Airport (Bordeaux Merignac) - 45 minutes from accommodation
Closest Train Station: Bordeaux St. Jean (35 minutes from accommodation), Libourne (20 minutes from accommodation)

*These details are provided as additional information. Please check below to see if transfers are included in this tour.

BOOKING INFORMATION

For further inquiries or to register, click here.

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CANCELLATION POLICY

Please contact us for cancellation policy information. Travel insurance is highly recommended.

CLIENT REMARKS

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MAP*

This exciting region is depicted below. You can also access Google MapsTM by clicking HERE. 

*In some cases mapping may give clients a general sense of location due to changes in venue. Please inquire about specific location.

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