A Taste of Spain offers scheduled and customized gourmet food and wine tours throughout Spain, including cooking classes, wine tasting, olive oil tasting, visit to producers, tapas tours. Discover the authentic gourmet cuisine and culture of Spain. A Taste Of Spain offers a genuine approach to both the most traditional roots of Spanish cooking and to the most outstanding cuisine made at the moment in Spain by avant-garde chefs.

Spain boasts a rich variety of gastronomic pleasures that could only be brought about by its unique climatic and cultural diversity. Surrounded in the North and West by the cold-water Atlantic, on the South and East by the warm watered Mediterranean, the Iberian peninsula for centuries has been a melting pot of Latin, Arabian, Jewish, and modern Christian cultures. Not to mention being at the forefront of the discovery, and subsequent trading with the Americas.

Spain´s culinary blessing does not end with its coastline. Several of the largest mountain ranges in Europe, mixed with the high plains of Castille and unique animal life combined with the diversity of the valleys and microclimates throughout the Iberian peninsula, allow for the largest Mediterranean crops of main agricultural products (olive oil, oranges, wines, fruits, vegetables...). A further blessing - the age-old towns and traditions have been maintained throughout the centuries, blending the cultures of various worlds with the local raw materials to produce truly unique, authentic, regional culinary delights.

The classes are designed to provide unique culinary experiences, "once in a life time" immersion in one of the most interesting culinary and cultural destination.  The programs include hands-on cooking lessons with local chefs, market visits, tasting, exclusive visits to artisan producers, selected meals at the best restaurants…They have sufficient free time to be easily adapted in conjunction with our professional English-speaking escort and to experience personally our other recommendations and do some investigating on your own.  Our hotel partners are selected for their local charm, comfort and convenience, including 4 or 5 star city hotels, Paradores or cosy country hotels.  Every detail is designed to meet the highest level of attention and professional service.

Catalonia has enjoyed a delicious and refined cuisine embracing plain, sea and mountain, a cuisine which on the coast has recourse to a wide array of fish, and inland, to typical dishes such as escudella (a meaty broth with pasta, usually followed by carn d'olla, a hearty stew) and roasts.  

For majority of the cooking holidays you will be lodged at Mas Ses Vinyes, one of the numerous "masias" (traditional rural house in Catalonya) a charming and comfortable small hotel close to the Costa Brava in a unique combination of mountain and coastal scenery.

Naturally, being less than an hour away from several houses and exhibits of Dali (Figueres, Cadaqués…), you will have enough time to explore this Dali's route coupled with culinary visits to traditional bakeries, markets, as well as participating in a wine tasting. The Medieval villages and towns of Girona, Pals, Peratallada, Palafrugell, …Historical sights placed on beautiful landscapes of shaped cliffs, the unforgettable Mediterranean  sea, olive groves and vineyards. A real opportunity to experience and understand what the Mediterranean has been for these people along the centuries.

We will organize a series of three cooking classes during these days at different venues in the area, to bring you up on the most traditional recipes of Catalonya. Two of them will take place at the prestigious "Aula Gastronomica de L'Empordà". You will enjoy a third one with a local gastronome and foodie. The area also accounts for a good number of upper quality restaurants featuring the local cuisine of L' Empordà, which has become famous for the constant references in the books of famous Catalan writer Josep Plà.  

• Group transfer from the Barcelona airport to your charming four-star hotel, located in the heart of the city. This evening you'll meet your guide for a delicious cava, the sparkling white wine that Catalonia is so famous for. You will enjoy our delicious welcome dinner at a traditional restaurant of Barcelona.  

• This morning your guide will lead you on a tour of the old Gothic Quarter and the port of Barcelona. You'll visit the famous market of La Boqueria. Then it's on to Las Ramblas, Barcelona's best known promenade, and other sites, as famous architecture Gaudi's creations. Lunch today features traditional tapas dishes.
• Your afternoon is free.
• You will have dinner on your own this evening. Suggestions will be provided.
  Lodging in Barcelona.

• Morning check out and transfer to Palafrugell, close to the beautiful Costa Brava. Lodging for the rest of the trip at Mas Ses Vinyes, a small rural quiet, family owned hotel surrounded by beautiful Mediterranean countryside.
  Lunch will be in a traditional rural restaurant in the area.
• First evening cooking lesson at "Aula Gastronomica de L'Empordà", a professional cooking school at the culinary heart of the region.
• Dinner follows the lesson, accompanied by regional Spanish wines.

• This morning you will meet Miguel, local cook and foodie, to visit the open-air Palafrugell market to do the shopping for your second cooking lesson. Stop at a traditional bakery along the way to purchase bread for the meal. 
• You will participate in an excellent wine tasting conducted by an expert. Today's cooking lesson will feature traditional Catalan dishes. You will enjoy for lunch what you have prepared. After lunch, visit nearby medieval villages, such as Pals, Peretallada, and the Iberian settlement of Ullastret as well as La Bisbal, the capital of the district known for its ceramics.
• Dinner will be on your own.  

• This morning, third cooking lesson at "Aula Gastronomica de L'Empordà", focused on different Catalan recipes. Lunch will follow. 

• Afternoon excursion to Girona: you'll visit the old part of the city with its Gothic cathedral, remains of walls from the Romanesque period, numerous stately houses, and the old Jewish quarter. 

• Dinner at best restaurant in Girona, one of the most acclaimed in Catalonia, two Michelin stars.

• Full day excursion along the Dali Route. In the morning, visit Cadaques, a typical Mediterranean fishing village and Portlligat, where Dali lived. Lunch free in Cadaqués.

• After lunch visit to the Dali Museum in Figueras. 

• Farewell dinner will take place at an excellent restaurant, close to Mas Ses Vinyes, that combines the traditional cooking with creative cuisine.

• After breakfast, group transfer to the Barcelona airport.