Walking tours - a choice of two!
Our gourmet walking tours will appeal to visitors and locals alike. Each tour gives our guests an understanding of the preserved heritage of Aix en Provence and its enviable way of life, or as they say in French, its “joie de vivre”. With Tastes of Provence there is a choice of two culinary excursions, both ending with recipes featuring local market ingredients and ideas for lunch and shopping.
Tuesdays and Thursdays
9:30am – 12:30pm
A market day in Provence is like a carnival day anywhere else, with a riot of colours and smells and the chatter of merchants drawing you in to the excitement. And market days are particularly enchanting in Aix en Provence. Under the shade of French plane trees, we set off, meandering our way through the winding streets of the town and past trickling fountains. From time to time, we will stop in front of the golden stone facades of aristocratic townhouses and hear stories of what happened inside these noble homes. Shortly, we arrive in the big, bustling market square and start diving into the action.
Your host, Jennifer, will show you what’s in season, how to choose ingredients and how to cook with them. We will meet farmers who sell several different varieties of a certain fruit or vegetable, such as strawberries or old-fashioned tomatoes. We will taste such local products as goat’s cheese, cured sausages, olives, flavoured salts and honeys and a special tea cake. You will find it hard to resist the gorgeous smells coming from cooked food merchants, such as spit-roasted organic chicken and steaming paella. Along the way, Jennifer will also guide you to the best tearooms, traiteurs (caterers), pastry and chocolate shops, all while telling stories about the history of aristocratic Aix. You will come away having experienced the happy atmosphere of a market day in Provence, along with all its tastes and smells, as well as an appreciation of the preserved heritage of this astonishingly beautiful town.
Tour Details
- Price per person is 50€.
- Tour group size is limited to 2 – 10 people.
- Tours run approximately 2½ - 3 hours.
- Tour includes all food tastings at the market, at a patisserie, and a stop for coffee.
- Seasonal recipes and a list of best shops and restaurants will be given at the end of the tour.
- Wear comfortable shoes; we will be walking on cobblestone streets.!
- Tours run rain or shine.
- A ticket and meeting place directions will be emailed to you upon reservation.
Most people associate France with its gastronomic heritage of fine food and wine and Aix en Provence is a perfect example of this idea. Aix is a foodie’s paradise, as evidenced not just by the number of restaurants, bistros and cafés, but by centuries’ old food speciality shops that still maintain their first-class reputations. At a time when supermarkets seem to be taking over, customers continue to crowd into these shops in search of the best in each category of cuisine.
Most French home cooks rely on their butcher, traiteur (take out hot meals), charcutier (supplier of cured meats and pâtés), fish monger, and cheeseman for parts of their meals and they order exquisite cakes and tarts from their patissier for dessert. In France, there is no shame in serving these prepared foods, as they are high quality, and the home chef can then just get on with cooking what he or she does best. Tastes of Provence will take you to some of these purveyors of fine food as we stroll the elegant streets and alleyways of Aix en Provence. We will meet the craftsmen and craftswomen, the owners and generations of family who own these culinary treasures. We will taste their specialities as well, many of them awarded gastronomic prizes in France.
This tour will also take in the small, daily market in the Place Richelme, allowing us to pause for coffee at a traditional “torrefacteur’s” café, or coffee roastery. Having explored the historic medieval quarter of Aix, we will save the best for (almost) last, visiting the most ancient of craftsman, the fromagère. You will be bewildered by the range of cheeses displayed in his tiny shop and the amount of customers crowding in. We will select a few cheeses and trot off to enjoy them at the counter of a Provence wines specialist, finishing our morning with a wine and cheese pairing. If you consider yourself a true gourmet, you will enjoy this French culinary adventure, as Jennifer passionately introduces you to the best food specialists and gastronomic heritage and history of Aix en Provence.
Tour Details
- Price per person is 55€.
- Tour group size is limited to 4 – 8 people.
- Tours run approximately 2½ - 3 hours.
- Tour includes all tastings at the market and at food purveyors.
- Tour includes a mid-way stop at an artisanal coffee roastery and ends with a tasting of regional wines along with a cheese pairing.
- Seasonal recipes and a list of best shops and restaurants will be given at the end of the tour.
- Wear comfortable shoes; we will be walking on cobblestone streets.
- Tours run rain or shine.
- A ticket and meeting place directions will be emailed to you upon reservation.
