Would you hop from city to city, country to country? Or, would you pick three places and spend a week per city? Has anyone stayed at medieval castle B&B before? How is that? Does it get too hot during the summer? Thanks in advance!

Look at Gemutlichkeit.com for castles. I think the answer to your other questions will be "depends." Depends on how you like to travel, whether you have traveled in Europe before, what is your goal, sightseeing or relaxing. Most of central europe is about on the same parallel as New York or Seattle so your weather may track about the same. If you are from NY you may find it a lot like home. Was it just two yeara gao when all those people died from the Summer heat in France?

OP: First time visit. We want to taste the local culture more than do the major tourist stuff (equivalent in NYC would be visiting WTC, Harlem, etc. - stuff we don't want to do). We are semi-gourmands and want to taste different foods. Monasteries (where we can stay overnight) sound good, too. As you can see, we're at the very, very preliminary stage of planning.

Europe has so many flavors of "local culture" - - how would you answer your own question(s) if someone were to ask where to go in the United States, for three weeks to "taste the local culture(s)"?

I have stayed only at one "castle hotel", and I would probably not choose to stay there for a prolonged stay (even though I really liked it); it really did not qualify as a "B&B" in any sense of the word. And it (Parkhotel Wasser-Anholt, in Germany, near the Dutch border) and some other places I might like to stay - - chateau de Mercues, for example - - seem to be somewhat "upper end" hotels, in their refurbishing into lodging.

You haven't told "us" enough to direct you to specific countries, let alone regions within specific countries - - since Europe is such a tapestry of dozens of different languages, exposure(s) to 20+ different centuries of life, and more cuisines than you could sample in a year.

Still, these ideas come to my mind, from the little bit you have told us:

Spain - - the paradors - - many of these are in "castles" or historic buildings. A few are pre-1700, I think. I believe that you will find very few, if any "medieval" (i.e., 1200-1550) locations that now provide lodging ... in ANY country

France - - many chateaux, though few are pre-revolutionary, and many are a "mere century old". And it might appeal to you to stay in an "entire town" where the whole place is (or now appears to be) 2-8 centuries old - - Carcassonne, for example, or St. Malo.

Italy - - same idea of an entire town being "Renaissance", if not actual "medieval" - - Siena comes immediately to mind, as does Assisi; no doubt plenty others in Tuscany.

Germany - - lots of castle hotels; and further north (thus, not so hot as France, Spain or Italy)

Poland - - quite a few castle hotels, especially in the southeast, if memory serves me correctly

Holland and/or Belgium - -the "beguinages" are monastery-like places that now offer quite austere hostel-type lodgings.

oh, and speaking of monastery-settings... L'Abbaye at Talloires (France) - - and others like it throughout France, no doubt - - yummy! but again, fairly "high end" now, and not at all a B&B

No doubt others will chime in with regard to castle offerings throughout the UK and Ireland; Denamrk and Scandinavia too.

Best wishes,

Rex

NYCdreamer,
Purely my personal preference but I would always spend several days, ideally a week at least, in each place. Very often the "local culture" is something you absorb slowly rather than in a single evening. You might get lucky with local music performances for example, but without good local advice you're just as likely to get production line fandango, highland fling, flamenco or whatever, aimed squarely at the tourists and nothing at all like the genuine article.
As for the weather, Europe is a big big place and the range of summer temperatures is huge. Central Spain and parts of central Germany, Austria etc will be 40C or higher, western coastal regions will be much more temperate. I'm told that many of the big cities in central Europe have no local residents in the height of summer - they all head to the coast to escape the heat, leaving the city to the tourists.
Decide on two or three regions or countries you really want to visit, then check the web sites of their national tourist boards for accommodation to suit your taste and budget. Before you book, have a look at the establishment's own web site if they have one, as these often give much better prices than the "official" rates quoted by the tourist boards.
Like I said, it's my personal choice, but I would never try to do a whole country in a single holiday never mind a continent. Depends whether you're looking for quality of experiences or quantity of places to tick off on a chart in your bedroom, from your messages my guess is you're more interested in the quality.

Here is a great little cooking school a friend of mine runs. It's at the foot of the French Alps and it's a week-long class. Several classes per summer.

http://www.lacuisinedesavoie.com/coo...ol_english.asp