Walking and cooking holidays

Our holidays celebrate the traditions and rituals around food and cooking, flavouring your experience with memorable cultural encounters. In the Spanish Pyrenees, for instance, you might be invited into the home of your hosts’ neighbour to see a rare Aragonese kitchen with a central fire for cooking. In Jordan, you’ll stay overnight in comfortable Bedouin camps, sharing homecooked feasts and learning about nomadic life in the desert. And in Italy, our walking and cooking holidays prioritise heritage products that are endangered due to the high cost of production, such as L'Aquila saffron.

…or, how much of an appetite am I going to build? In the French Alps you can expect to be tackling some pretty strenuous hikes. Full day walks with altitude gains over 1,000m in places, and the occasional bit of scrambling, mean that you’ll be looking forward to the delicious crepes your guide whips up in the mountain shelter. In Provence, or the Umbria and Tuscany regions of Italy, it tends to be more easy-going, with half day walks at a relaxed pace between tastings, cookery workshops and market tours. The Spanish Pyrenees offers a mix of the two, with some moderate full day walks, and some leisurely days where you can meander off to do your own thing for a while.

The best way to enjoy our walking and cooking holidays is as part of a small group. You have a local guide with you on every walk, leading the way, introducing you to people in the communities you pass through, telling you about the region, its landscapes, history and cuisine. And you also have great company. This kind of trip is very sociable, and if you’re in a group of 10-12 people you’ll always find someone who’s happy to walk at the same pace as yourself, or keen to share a cheese board or crack open another bottle of wine.

Our walking and cooking tours make a point of supporting local producers, growers and farmers wherever possible. In Provence, walks are often complimented with market tours, opportunities to meet many stallholders selling their wares, everything from cheeses, meats and jams to lavender products – ingredient ideas for picnics, but also plenty of potential for souvenirs. And in Jordan, walks in the Ajloun Forest Reserve might be interspersed with visits to women’s cooperatives in the area that help combat high unemployment levels through the making and selling of soap, cookies and more. You can also stop for a cookery lesson, learning to make Jordanian jams or tahini.