If you're passionate about food and drink and enjoy sampling diverse types of cuisines, there's nothing better than a culinary tour to round off your Spanish holiday in Barcelona. As the capital of Catalonia, where food is almost as important as religion, Barcelona offers visitors endless opportunities to sample the specialties of the region. However, if you want to experience the “real” thing, and not just stuff that's modified to suit touristy tastes, take a culinary tour of the region around Barcelona and you'll return home with a bag full of memories.
Catalan cuisine is characterized by typical Mediterranean flavors, interesting ways of cooking sea-food, farm-fresh vegetables and fruits, fresh dairy and meat products with mild spices and local olive oils, rice, pasta and bread. There are plenty of culinary tour packages available in Barcelona and you can take your pick from a variety of daily or week-long tours, curated by professional chefs and vintners who can guide you through the culinary history of the region.
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Typical culinary tours in Barcelona are the Tapas Tours: these are designed to take you through a variety of tapas bars where your guide helps you to choose the right types of these finger-lickin' good snacks, and the wines or sangrias that go with them. This is also a great opportunity to mingle with the locals. Your guide is usually a fund of information on customs, Barcelona anecdotes and gives you tips on how food is prepared. Tapas tours take you to more than a dozen chosen bars, where you get to sample the specialties, beers, wines and drinks and could stretch out over 4-5 hours in the evening.
Other culinary tours include the Morning Breakfast tours: these are really delightful as they start very early in the morning with a trip to the local markets when the fresh produce and sea-food arrive. Most morning-markets have stalls selling freshly baked bread, grilled items like pancetta, Spanish omlettes, dried meats and fresh fruits, salads and juices. A great way to start your day!
If you're interested in a rural/countryside experience, take a 10-hour trip by car into the outskirts of Barcelona which are still largely agricultural. These are the places which keep the traditions of Catalan food alive with their traditional cheese and wine-making, food and meat processing methods. Fresh sheep and goat cheese, home-grown mushrooms, tomatoes and olive oil are the redolent flavors here.
Grilled leeks, ham and spicy sausages served with typical pasta and rice for lunch, are a very different experience from the touristy paella that's served everywhere in Spain. Children are welcomed on most culinary tours.Before signing up for a culinary tour, check how much walking is involved, because Barcelona is a city of inclines. However, if the itinerary includes frequent stops and a restful pace, go ahead and enjoy a delicious taste of Catalonia!
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