Spanish Holiday: Food lovers' Spain

If you're a dedicated foodie and good cuisine and wine are your religion, your Spanish holiday can be nothing short of a culinary pilgrimage! With its huge range of cuisines, displaying the diverse cultural and historical influences that have gone into making Spanish cuisine among the most celebrated in the world, a trip through Spain's provinces would give the gourmet a better idea of how food is prepared, served, and enjoyed across the country.

There are many tour operators who offer culinary tours to Spain, for food-lovers and food-professionals. Typically a package involves traveling through different regions, sampling local delicacies, wines, cheeses and desserts and attending professional cooking classes, discovering rare gastronomic delights and participating in food shows, exhibitions, events and other food-related activities.

A typical itinerary would include a walking tour of Madrid's local markets, where you get to see how local produce is bought and sold, followed by a typical Iberian lunch, with pork and the famous Spanish sherry and wines. Evenings are dedicated to sampling tapas, wines and watching a flamenco show. A tour of the Rioja vineyards, with wine-tasting, at a family-owned vineyard, a traditional home-cooked meal is followed by a trip to San Sebastian and a private cooking class to learn Basque specialties, a taste of their special tapas known as pinxtos, as you walk through this charming town. The next day could be a trip to Bilbao, and lunch at the famous Bistro here. Barcelona is next on the list, with a visit to its beautiful antique food market, the Bouqueria and a Mediterranean culinary experience. A trip to the local olive groves and an olive-oil pressing factory with lunch with the family that owns it forms a fitting end to this foodie cornucopia!

If there's anything special you want to learn or taste, you can custom-design your culinary tour. A spice tour of Spain during the saffron-harvesting season would involve a hands-on experience of harvesting and peeling the saffron stamens off the flowers. A special event called the Saffron Rose Festival is held in Conseguera in Toledo in July which of course means you get to taste the mouth-watering paella, since saffron is an essential ingredient. A visit to the pepper fields of Extramadura is another great option.

In Toledo also you get to visit the famous Manchego cheese and travel the Don Quixote trail. Tasting sessions, rustic lunches among the famous windmills is an unforgettable experience.

If you're a wine-enthusiast, you can take one of the Wine Road trips through the Basque region. Laguardia, where the famous Rioja wine has been distilled since the 17th century, is an important wine center. The tour takes you around medieval monasteries, bodegas (traditional wine-cellars) and if you're in Briones, a tour of the Wine Museum here.

So let your taste-buds do the talking, when you're on a culinary tour of Spain!