jim310

Hello wonderful people of the internet!

I'm just beginning to plan a 3 week spring time vacation in Europe and I was wondering if any of you have suggestions for cities/places to visit. Here are a few things about me:

1. I would like to see Spain and France at the least
2. I will be travelling with my girlfriend (we are in our late 20's)
3. We are huge foodies and love wine
4. We would prefer to try local foods (not creative/fusion/modern/michelin star restaurants)
5. Our budget for the trip is 2500 euros per person
6. We speak English + Broken Spanish + Very broken French

Any/all advice is greatly appreciated, and thanks for reading!
Jim

Coquelicot

If you want restaurant meals, then lunch will be cheaper than dinner.

If you want picnics, try to find an outdoor market each morning and collect food for your lunch. You'll find local breads, cheeses, sausages, strawberries, salad greens, and so on.

You might also enjoy a visit to a supermarket. The dairy section is always amazing to me. There's usually a section of local products like cookies, grains, honey, galettes, jars of rillettes. The chocolate bar selection at a Leclerc is one of the 7 wonders of the world--I may be exaggerating just a little.

jim310

Thanks! Any recommendations for cities to go to in Spain? Or specific outdoor markets?

Also we are less interested in cooking ourselves

sandralist

Spain is terrific destination for travelers on a budget. You can eat tapa and pintos and other small bites, which is a marvelous experience in itself, but if you are a food tourist, it also gives you an opportunity to sample a wide array of the local treats without spending a lot of money.

But to get the most of your travels and budget, and since you are most interested in native custom when it comes to food, you really should invest in reading about (a) how Spaniards approach meals (what they typically eat for breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner) and when and where they eat it. That will make a huge difference. Then you also should read about the various REGIONS of Spain so you understand the differences between Catalonian dishes, Basque dishes, Andalusian dishes. Even though you are not going to cook yourselves, it is important to know what to expect.

You can find this information on the internet (not message forums, but through google searches) and by browsing in bookstores. If food is as important to you as you say it is, look at the regional cuisines and choose where to go based on what appeals to you. If you love red wine, take a look at the Rioja areas, but it is also true that you can get marvelous wines from Rioja in all the cities of Spain.

As for France, renting a car means having the ability to tour great wine country like Burgundy, but if you don't want to do that, then consider Paris and maybe some time in Bordeaux. I knew a young couple who went bicycling through one of the wine areas of France, so that might be worth looking into as a budget trip -- although if you are going early in Spring, it might not work.

If you end up picking Paris, you will have a tougher time finding budget lodgings that also allows for foodie treats. But perhaps one kind of trip that could work for you is a bit of time in Paris, sometime in Bordeaux, some time in San Sebastian, and then flying home from Madrid or vice versa. People greatly underrate Madrid as a food destination. I think it can be better than Barcelona.

But get more familiar with who eats what and think about whether you want to eat a lot of pig or seafood or cheese or sweets, and whether you want to see wineries or just drink great wine.

Robert2533

3 weeks on a €5000 budget for two shouldn't be a major problem in eathing your way through northern Spain and southern France, Catalunya to the Basque country. You don't want to wonder too far afield (Burgundy, Bordeaux or Paris) if you want to make the most of your time and budget. And as already noted, lunch tends to be less expensive than dinner.

In the spring I would look a flying into Barcelona (4 to 5 nights), then pick up a car and head up inyo French Catalonia for a few days before driving to Pau in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. From there you can head back into Spain over the pass at Formigal, and head west toward San Sebastian-Donostia. You'll be able to enjoy the traditional cuisine of Aragon, Navarra, the Rioja and finally the Basque country.

If you plan it right, you'll be able to fly home from Bilbao.

jim310

Thanks so much for the responses! Ill definitely do some more research into them

IMDonehere

One of the things we enjoy when we are walking around larger cities, is buying meat, bread, chocolate, wine, fruit, dessert, etc, and throwing it our backpack and having a feast for diner.

If you are checking in your luggage, pack a corkscrew, knife, and fork. If not, just buy a corkscrew wherever you are.

bilboburgler

"I would like to see Spain and France at the least" in 3 weeks I would not consider trying for any other countries.

Most large towns in France will have a market that will make anything you have visited in say the US look like a corner store, so no need to recommend individual markets. Many are street markets and in the cities they often have morphed into indoor markets. Spain tend to have more indoor permanent markets which are equally good.

Foods are very much local and each region has a whole range of local dishes which will go well with the local wine.

I'm assuming flights are not included in the prices above....

I'd work out a route by train, they are clean and fast in Europe and get you where you want to be (ie the centres of cities, towns or villages) unlike cars that just become a pain.

I think I'd start in Spain train to Loire, down to Bordeaux maybe focusing on Cahors or Bergerac rather than the sprawl that is Bordeaux City, then Toulouse/Narbonne/Carcassone (choose 1) before crossing the border for the delights of Girona or Barcelona, then onto Grenada/Seville/Cordoba (all three) before a train to Madrid and fly home

bilboburgler

Riding bikes and wine. might find http://www.mybikeguide.co.uk/ useful in some of the areas. The Loire tourist information website has a fantastic subsite about their great bike path.

sandralist

Even if flights are included in the prices above, I think a great time can be had within the budget, including wonderful food and wine. France and Spain really do provide marvelous opportunities to eat well -- not just flavor bombs and picnics, but satisfying homey meals -- for people who work up a plan for that and execute it. Both destinations -- with the possible exception of Paris -- offer many comfortable choices for accommodation at an attractive price. One does not need to cover a lot of distance to experience a lot of variety, and one doesn't really need to rent a car either if that would cut too much into the food budget. There are cheap train tix and flights.

The hard part for the travelers will be choosing which delicious slice of the France-Spain cake they want. But it's hard to go wrong with any choice, even unconventional, not-famous locales when it comes to eats, scenery and history.

bigtyke

For a week n France, you might want to consider staying a week in an apartment (gite). It would probably be cheaper and if you have a car, you can do day trips without the hassle of changing hotel rooms as much.

annhig

I like Robert's plan, but first of all you need to work out the best flights - preferably open jaw [into one place, out of another, often called "multi-city" on airline websites]. if available, flying into Barcelona and out of Toulouse would be a good option. Bilbao would also work well.

have fun with your planning!

stokebailey

Wander outside of the touristic centers of cities to eat, and have your phrasebook handy for surrepititious peeks.

When searching Yelp.com for "cheap eats" in Seville, we had good luck with tapas places where the posts were written mostly in Spanish. Researching in advance gave me the bonus of improving my own very rusty Spanish. We had good luck also asking for tapas "especialidad de la casa."

macdogmom

Chowhound.com message boards have great tips on the best restaurants and small markets to visit. I use it for all our overseas trips.

PalenQ

Are you driving or taking the train or planes or biking as suggested above (a great way to really get to know a country and its people on a real level not just from heavily touristed areas that may be jaded by tourists.

But the train system in each country is superb - at times trains blasting along at nearly 200 mph - and there are overnight trains to save on travel time and the cost of a hotel.

www.voyages-sncf.com and www.capitainetrain.com are sites to check schedules and fares for France, including the discounted fares that sold in limited numbers must be booked in stone (refunds changes I believe not possibe - but not totally sure) - if taking several longer trains look into a France-Spain Railpass (Saver is two or more traveling together)- for lots of great info on trains in Spain (where the pain at one time indeed was on the train but no more as not country in Europe has modernized its inter-city rail system as much as the Spanish have) and on trains in France check these IMO superb sites: www.seat61.com; www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com (download the latter's free online European Planning & Rail Guide's Spain and France sections for suggested rail itineraries in each country.

Local trains go everywhere and though they are not bullet trains they are comfy - you can go practically anywhere an average first0time tourist wants to go by rail.

PalenQ

The Loire tourist information website has a fantastic subsite about their great bike path.>

Quite a few Loire hotels have bikes for guests to use - no carrying heavy luggage around - just head for the bike paths or superb side roads to the nearest chateau!

bilboburgler

Je m'excuse, voici http://www.cycling-loire.com/

kerouac

Real foodies on a real low budget would do well to look into the restaurants operated by the gastronomic high schools of Paris.

http://www.parisinfo.com/decouvrir-p...les-hotelieres

However, the main thing to keep in mind is that all of these schools are subject to the normal school holidays and the restaurants are closed during all school holidays as well as on weekends.

PalenQ

kerouac - do those culinary school restaurants serve booze? Maybe a silly question in Fance of old but perhaps not today?

nukesafe

Bookmarking for that link to the culinary schools.

I think they serve wine, as the links to the individual school restaurants show wine glasses on the tables. Anyway, how could you become a good French chef without learning about wine?