In the annals of this family’s holiday lows, Zakynthos 2004 takes the stale,
soggy biscuit. The beaches were great, the villa was gorgeous, the food was
. . . well, lousy. What’s not to love about charred peppers and oily
aubergines, I hear you ask. In the words of our two-year-old: it’s all too
yuk.
Fast-forward three years, and tour operators now know that for many of us,
food isn’t just a side dish on the holiday platter – it’s the main course,
wine and pudding, too. We’re talking holidays where lunch isn’t something
you squeeze in between activities – it is the activity. Truffling in Italy,
lobster-potting in Sweden, riding between wine chateaux in the Loire –
foodies, start loosening those belts, the holiday world is now your
Colchester oyster, washed down with something from Pol Roger. Here we round
up a delectable dozen.
— Prices are per person, based on two people sharing. Flights, where included,
are from London. Contact the operator for details of regional departures
GASTRO TREK
France
If there’s one hotel on the trekking planet you’d want to wind up in when the
footslogging is over, it’s Le Vieux Castillon, in Provence, a stunning
medieval conversion with a pool for your blisters and a Michelin-starred
terrace restaurant overlooking the vineyards of Castillon du Gard.
Journey’s end on Inntravel’s six-night, self-guided walk from Uzès, Le Vieux
Castillon is reached after a two-day trek across orchards, oak woods,
vineyards and carpets of thyme, passing the Roman Pont du Gard aqueduct,
with rest days in Uzès, Collias and Castillon du Gard set aside for day
walks, market exploration or just kicking back by the hotel pool.
Details: Inntravel (01653 617906, www.inntravel.co.uk)
has the six-night To the Pont du Gard itinerary from £1,048, half-board,
including two picnic lunches, luggage transfers, route notes, maps and
Eurostar/TGV travel from London to Avignon via Lille.
LOBSTER-POTTING
Sweden
The lobster season started this week on Sweden’s Bohuslan coast, with boat
sheds and breweries, cafes and gourmet restaurants given over to what locals
call the “black gold of the sea”. Ninety minutes north of Gothenburg,
overlooking a quay used by local fishermen to land their daily catch,
Handelsman Flink is a spa hotel that organises lobster safaris, on which
guests go lobster-potting, then eat what they catch. To help you earn your
feast, sea-kayaking and mountain-biking are available.
Details: Handelsman Flink (00 46 304 55051, www.handelsmanflink.se)
offers a one-night lobster safari from £215pp, half-board, based on two
sharing and including the lobster dinner. The nearest airport, Gothenburg,
is served by Ryanair (0871 246 0000, www.ryanair.com) and SAS (0870 6072
7727, www.flysas.com). Two nights’ car
hire starts at £46 through Hertz (0870 844 8844, www.hertz.co.uk).
CHATEAUX ON HORSEBACK
France
Riding through vineyards and forests between medieval chateaux, stopping for
picnics by the Loire, with a daily maximum of three hours in the saddle and
your horses tacked and fed – it’s not so much a holiday as a Louis XIV wet
dream. Starting and finishing at Château de Chambord, sleeping in B&B
chateaux, the ride can be done in four days or seven, but both itineraries
include hands-on cookery classes with a local chef.
Details: Equitour (0800 043 7942, www.equitour.co.uk)
has a three-night Gourmet Tour of the Loire for £775 (six nights cost
£1,550), including all meals, cookery tuition, chateau tours and luggage
transfers. International Rail (0870 084 1410, www.internationalrail.com
) has returns from London to Blois, near Château Chambord, from £87.
GASTRO TOUR
Slovenia
Relatively untouched by the collectivisation imposed on eastern Europe after
the war, Slovenia today is awash with small-scale food producers, drawing
heavily on the culinary influences of neighbours Italy, Austria and Hungary.
Home to a 400-year-old vine – said to be the oldest on the planet – Slovenia
also has a tradition of viticulture that dates back to Roman rule.
This tour of the Alpine north and the wine-growing regions along the Hungarian
border includes wine-tasting, bread-baking, two nights at a pension owned
and run by a Slovene former Cook of the Year, and three nights, plus a
cooking day, at a boutique hotel owned by Valter Kramar, the rising star of
Slovenia’s gastro world.
Details: Just Slovenia (01373 814230, www.justslovenia.co.uk)
has 11 nights, half-board, from £834, including flights with Adria Airways
to Ljubljana and car hire.
WINE WEEKEND
Croatia
No foodie round-up is complete without raising a glass to Arblaster &
Clarke, masters of the gourmet tour. The company’s Champagne Weekends (25
champagnes tasted in two days; from £325) take some beating, as does next
year’s Corsica, Italy & Croatia Wine Cruise (July 22 to August 1;
from £4,199). But we like the look of the Wine & City Tours, on
which you’ll visit wine estates for lunch, escorted by local experts, with
evenings free to leave the group and explore. Cities available are
Barcelona, Rome, Oporto, Bordeaux, Lyons, and Rovinj, on Croatia’s Istrian
coast, where you’ll visit fabulous food markets, wine estates and
restaurants. Truffles, mushrooms and prosciutto are currently to the fore.
Details: Arblaster & Clarke (01730 263111, www.winetours.co.uk)
has the four-night Gourmet Istria tour for £1,099, including breakfast, five
meals with wine, tastings, tutorials, transfers and flights to Ljubljana.
TRUFFLING
Italy
If Italy is the spiritual home of gastro-tourism, then Piedmont is its
showroom. Village garages hang hams alongside Castrol GTX, grannies produce
their own cheese and, come October, even tiny hardware shops sell fist-size
truffles.
Based in a 17th-century palazzo surrounded by vineyards, with views of the
Alps, this three-night break during the Alba truffle festival includes a
woodland truffle hunt with local legend Mario and his prize hound, Rocky.
Tastings at nearby La Spinetta vineyard and dinner at any of the four
Michelin-starred restaurants or dozens of humble yet sensational trattorie
in the area can be arranged.
Details: Bellini Travel (020 7602 7602, www.bellinitravel.com)
has three nights at La Villa from £625, B&B, including flights with
British Airways to Turin, car hire and truffling.
TEMPLES AND COOK SCHOOLS
Cambodia
You could backpack round Cambodia eating nothing but fish curry from street
stalls and it would be a gourmet getaway to remember – throw in the
country’s top restaurants and cookery schools, on tour led by Rick Stein’s
head chef, and this is a 15-day tour with staggering foodie credentials.
With time divided between Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and the beaches of Kep, the
tour is part sightseeing, part adventure and part luxurious gastro-blitz,
taking in Angkor Wat, city markets, cookery schools, an overnight boat trip
on Tonlé Sap (Great Lake), nights in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club and
gourmet dinners from top Khmer chefs, including Luu Meng and Joannès
Rivière.
Details: Wild Frontiers (020 7736 3968, www.wildfrontiers.co.uk)
has a 14-night Cambodia Culinary Tour (October 13-27) from £2,800,
full-board, including transfers, sightseeing and flights with Eva Air via
Bangkok.
RYOKAN TOUR
Japan
Staying at ryokans – traditional tatamimat inns that offer gourmet
extravaganzas – this is a serious assault on the palate, with time between
feasts for sightseeing.
Kicking off with visits to a soba-noodle cook school and Tsukiji fish market,
in Tokyo, the tour heads north to Takayama, in the Japanese Alps, to sample
local Hida beef and sake. From here, it’s two nights in a Buddhist monastery
in Koyasan, then on to Osaka’s backstreet fugu restaurants and takoyaki
(octopus ball) bars. After feasting on smoked oysters and the local
speciality, okonomiyaki (savoury pancakes), in Hiroshima, the tour winds up
at a cookery school in Kyoto, with time factored in for some of the former
capital’s 2,000 temples.
Details: Intrepid Travel (01373 826611, www.intrepidtravel.com)
has the 13-night Japan Gourmet Traveller from £2,043, B&B,
including seven dinners, two lunches and BA flights to Tokyo. A 14-day
unlimited rail pass costs £196 (www.japantravel.co.uk).
SPICE WORLD
India
Long loved by backpackers for its beaches and backwaters, the southern Indian
states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu are even longer loved by Indians for their
cuisine. Subtle, spicy, aromatic veggie specialities such as sambar, idli
and dosa are the chief foodie targets here, but the area is also known for
its seafood – and for an Arab influence in its cuisine.
The tour starts in Chennai (formerly Madras), with visits to the food market
in Cochin and a spice plantation in Thekkady, as well as a day with Faiza
Moosa, an expert on Muslim cuisine, in Tellicherry. It also packs in an
overnight cruise on a luxury rice barge, and the Meenakshi Temple, in
Madurai, before you head to Delhi and Lucknow, eating at some of the best
restaurants in the country.
Details: Western & Oriental Travel (0845 277 3389, www.westernoriental.com)
has the 15-night Taste of India tour from £3,949, full-board, including
transfers and BA flights into Madras and out of Delhi.
MOUNTAINS AND MONASTERIES
Georgia
If Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, then Georgia was its
orchard. Almost indecently abundant, its countryside is littered with walnut
groves and pomegranate orchards, while home-brew winemakers – in a country
said to have up to 1,000 varieties of grape – are legion.
Plotted around farmhouses and guesthouses especially noted for their cooking,
this tour of Tbilisi, the Kakheti wine region, the Caucasus town of Gudauri
and the former capital, Mtskheta, takes in monasteries and cathedrals,
troglodyte villages and local markets, with belt-busting khachapuri (flat
bread with melted cheese) and satsivi (walnut sauce) feasts throughout,
presided over by the tamada (toastmaster-cum-raconteur).
Details: Regent Holidays (0845 277 3317, www.regent-holidays.co.uk)
has an eight-night Food & Wine Tour of Georgia from £1,135, full-board,
including BA flights to Tbilisi.
RIDING BETWEEN VINEYARDS
South Africa
Blessed with some of the best farm and seafood produce on the planet, and
littered with a new breed of unashamedly foodie boutique lodges and
farmhouses, South Africa – and in particular the Western Cape – is a
spectacular spot to let loose your gastro juices. After five nights in Cape
Town, at Four Rosmead, on the slopes of Table Mountain, the trip really hits
its foodie straps in Franschhoek, with a riding tour of the vineyards around
your hotel, the fabulous hillside Mont Rochelle (formerly La Couronne),
whose restaurant has a reputation unrivalled in the winelands.
Details: Audley Travel (01993 838550, www.audleytravel.com)
has eight nights in Cape Town and Franschhoek from £1,495, B&B,
including car hire, a guided riding tour and BA flights to Cape Town.
