Slow Food Travel - Spain

Looking for an excuse to stay in Spain a while? Do you really need one? If the traditional lifestyle, warm local hospitality and gorgeous countryside weren’t reason enough, I’ll offer you another: local food you can take home with you. Following the principles of the slow travel movement invites you to become part of Spain.

No, I’m not suggesting that you fly to Spain, collect suitcases full of paella and pescaito frito to smell up the plane home. Forget trying to explain the rice and olive oil seeping out of your carry-on to the customs official. I’m suggesting slow food. I am suggesting taking a shopping cart to the carniceria for meat, the panaderia for for bread, bringing the ingredients back to your rented villa for a cooking class. You can find a private instructor in the closest city or make friends with a local–not hard to do!–who can show you what you need to know.

Slow food is cooking with fresh ingredients, making everything yourself and enjoying the fruits of your labors. Besides the obvious advantages of experimenting with flavor learning a new art, slow food means knowing exactly what goes into your food. Every ingredient passes your scrutiny. But the real advantage of slow food, of making your microwave jealous and cutting out fast food fat is being part of your life process. You are there for the cooking, the serving and the eating. You are freed from being reliant on others to determine your menu and feel connected to every bite that you can take pride in having created.

Take time to enjoy and learn the different regional cuisine of Spain. Each region offers a different theme as well as variations on country-wide favorites. From the Jabugo ham and fish specialties of Andalusia to the indescribable olla podrida of Extremadura, Spain is the perfect place to begin your slow food journey.

Sardinia - Great Slow Travel Destination

The spirit of slow travel is relaxation and familiarization. Some destinations lend themselves to this ever more popular style of travel more than others. Tokyo, for example, would not be the ideal location for a slow traveller any more than the mall food court would be anyone’s first choice for a leisurely three course meal. Sardinia, on the other hand, is an ideal journey location for a slow traveler.

Sardinia is the second largest island (after Sicily) in the Mediterranean Sea. Sardinia is uniquely suited to slow travel for a few very good reasons. First, it’s island geography gives a nice demarkation of area to explore. You can organize a sea-to-sea trip and travel from the east coast to the west coast and enjoy everything in between in a couple of days or perhaps take the longer north-south route and enjoy what each different area has to offer.

Another great reason Sardinia is an excellent slow travel destination is its amazing and unique local culture. Sardinia’s ancient–indeed, the very first–polyphonic musical style has influenced all other music that has come since. Several famous musicians have come to Sardinia expressly to hear the music first hand. Peter Gabriel even recorded it and made a cult sensation of an album.

Slow travel means staying in local style and immersing yourself in their culture as well as really familiarizing yourself with the entire area. The way to do this is in a local rental from which you can explore the ancient ruins, test your bravery with local food and see how much of the language you can decipher. Know you’ve left home: consider a rental like this one as a more enjoyable and affordable alternative to an impersonal hotel.

Corsica - Individual and Never Alone

The spirit of Corsica is epitomized in the legend of her national hero, Pasquale Paoli. Pasquale Paoli led a patriotic Corsican uprising leading to the first democratic republic of the modern age, including the first modern constitution and women’s suffrage. This spirit of patriotism and independence flourishes in Corsica to this day, creating a small community of idealists on large island with fiery Italian passion, sensual French sensibilities and a sense of neighborliness all its own. This is the place for the passionate to vacation.

Corsica is the perfect place to visit. It is even a more perfect place to stay. Where else in the world can you find exquisite food from all over Europe, energizing French nightlife and abandoned beaches with private coves secreted away all within a few miles of one another? Nowhere, I would contend.

During the day Corsica wears the mask of gentility and civilization like a boxer might wear a silk glove. At night, however, the gloves come off and a visitor is hit with a straight right: fiery music reveals the bandit past of the island. One might be inspired to dance. If one were, one would not find himself alone.

The Three Frances

There are three Frances. There is local France and there is Tourist France. Between the two, there is Villa France.

Villa France exists in the Hemingway continuum of decades past. While you don’t have to go to the extreme of actually building a life and getting a job in France, inhabiting villa France feels more like ‘living’ and less like ‘touring.’ Renting a villa for at least a week and taking your whole family or a group of friends eliminates the frantic jangle of ‘tourism’ that gave rise to the ‘Ugly American’ image without detracting from the spirit of holiday and vacation. If anything this new spirit of “slow travel”–gaining greater prominence in national and worldwide publications–adds to the appreciation of locations like Mandelieu or Ruffiac which really require at least a week each to get to know.

As a citizen of villa France you take part in the slow travel movement. You eschew guide lists, you throw site-seeing maps to the periphery and follow local information on local transportation, discovering all there is to see, do, eat and drink for yourself. The true beauty of travel is in discovery and wonder. Simply put you can not truly be in France if you sequester yourself away in an American style hotel and eat americanized food served by English speaking waiters. Slow travel means slow food, cooked by you with ingredients picked up in local groceries and prepared with genuine local methods with your new French friends at your own dinner table.

Being a slow traveller, and therefore a temporary resident, you also won’t make the mistake of bringing a bottle of wine with you when you come to dinner at your new friend’s home. Only the ugly American would make the mistake of insulting his host’s selection!

Palace of beautiful strategy

There are some things, which simply can’t be found in America. A palace is one of those things. A palace fills minds young and old with images of faerie tale weddings, ultra-luxurious homes full of intrigue and happenings and lavishly appointed royal parties. In Castigliano Del Lago there is a palace that was the center of all those things and still looks as though it could continue to do so in modern days.

Castigliano Del Lago was considered such an important strategic position during the middle ages that is was hotly contested by Perugia, Arezzo, Sienna and Firenze. Eventually, in the 12th century, Perugia won out and ordered the reconstruction of the medieval town. It remains now much as it did after that reconstruction, the big difference being that beyond the historic area’s walls (area storico) there is a modern residential zone. The Palazzo Ducale (duke’s palace) is the best example of that reparation.

The palace was actually built from 13th century tower remains in 1563, but those towers’ components dated back even further and would not exist to this day if it weren’t for the medieval reconstruction. The palace is as much a luxurious villa as a defensive structure, and houses as many gorgeous frescoes and paintings as it once housed paranoid royalty-on-the-run.

If you plan on staying in Umbria, stay like royalty in your own palace–figuratively speaking. Check out a villa with Interhome and see what they can offer you.

Castigliano Del Lago, Tuscany

There are some areas that do not lend themselves to the sanitized, impersonal experience of a hotel. Then there are places where a hotel seems to simply be out of place. After that, there’s Castigliano Del Lago.

Castigliano Del Lago hotels are no doubt as fine as what you’d expect from a reasonably popular resort town. The hotels in Castigliano Del Lago are what you’d expect from any modern Italian town, and that’s exactly why they are out of touch with the spirit of this historic and charming town. They’re too up-to-date, too fast paced, too ‘modern.’

The essence of Castigliano Del Lago is in its ancient stone walls, its frescoed old buildings, its smooth stone paved streets and murals depicting the famous swordsmen and saints who called the town home. A hotel room will find you outside of this historic area and seated squarely within the kitschier, touristy modern town. Rent a villa for a week and your whole family can step out your front door and into the medieval city the hotel visitors have to trek to.

The only riverside town in all of Sardinia

Bosa Marina is, rather surprisingly, the only riverside town in all of Sardinia. Typically, rivers have been the locations for important cities. Bosa Marina is located where the Temo River spills into the sea on the western coast of Sardinia, where the fertile soil and strategic position has ensured its continuous occupation since ancient times.

Proof of its habitation is everywhere. Scattered about like the chess pieces of a drunken god are ancient and medieval monuments giving testimony to Bosa Marina’s rich history. One such monument is Serravalle Castle, the home of the XIIth century Malaspina family.

On the 15th of August there is another testimony to Bosa’s long and storied traditions. Our Lady the Protector of the Sea is honored by a procession of boats meandering down the river carrying singers and a statue of the Virgin Mary to the sea.

Bosa Marina is a beautiful and civilized place to explore and an enchanting base for a slow travel expedition around the entire island. Take a few days to discover all the ancient ruins and restorations before trekking out across the flatlands toward Alghero. Stop on the way with a bottle of the Bosa’s local wine in any of the multitude of hidden coves for a picnic treat you won’t soon forget.

Zillertal–Rural, yet comfortable

Zillertall is a lovely resort set between majestic and picturesque mountains deep in rural Tyrol. For a long time, the main industry of Zillertal was coal mining, lending to the pastoral quality of this sylvan land. The natural beauty of Zillertal remains unspoiled, but the main factor in the area is now tourism. Tourists that hear of the unprecedented winter sport opportunities and welcoming atmosphere of Zillertal in particular and Tyrol in general often find their new favorite vacation spot.

One of the villages in the Zillertal valley is Fügen. Fügen is about as unspoiled as Austria gets, and yet as accommodating as you could want. Within the resort, a visitor can find a heated swimming pool, tennis, summer skiing in nearby Hintertux, a summer toboggan run and, in the winter, the valley has 154 ski lifts to different slopes. There is little for an active traveler to desire.

Of course the real reason to come and stay in such a beautiful area is to see the place itself. Zillertal has miles and miles of deep valleys and winding mountain paths to intrigue hikers and bikers. There are mountain and street bicycles for rent and enough trail to keep you occupied for the entirety of your stay, no matter how long.

Engelberg–Slow Travel’s Swiss Resort

Engelberg is not the name that pops into every American’s mind when we think “Swiss resort.” More glamorous and well known are Davos, St. Moritz and Zermatt, and they are all very worthy of their claims to fame, but it is precisely this notoriety that can turn off some vacationers.

For a renter looking for a more subdued, traditional atmosphere, Engelberg Switzerland is perfect. Centrally located in the canton of Obwalden, Engelberg is perfectly suited for the traveler who wants to take in the famous sites. It’s no problem at all to get to Lucerne, the Bernese Oberland or Zurich. With all the famous events and attractions in and around the area, Engelberg is perfect for slow travel–the growing trend of taking it easy and really getting to know an area instead of racing through it.

Engelberg’s immediate location is as enchanting as a steamship excursion over Lake Lucerne (and that’s saying a lot!). Tucked away in a valley like something out of a fantasy novel, Engelberg is watched over by rolling, verdant hills and imposing peaks. Obviously the winter makes Engelberg a skiing resort but when the summer reveals the green, Engelberg’s 18 hole golf course and scores of family activities provide more distractions for the visitors to this storybook village.

There’s no way to become a part of the place without getting the residential experience, and no better homes than the ones Interhome has to offer. Interhome knows Switzerland, and they want to know you; check out their properties and talk with a personal representative before booking.

Refinement and Excitement from your Lorraine Villa

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever considered eating quiche that the French region of Lorraine is as well known for its cuisine as it is for its excellent villas and homes. What sets food from Lorraine apart is the key ingredients, among which smoked bacon and the mirabelle plum are chief.

While French restaurants in America can approximate the puffed and flaky pastries that the Lorraine region is celebrated for, an approximation is all those faux auberges can truly produce. While it’s a stretch to consider traveling to Europe just for desert, once in Lorraine a visitor may very well wonder why they didn’t do just that sooner.

Within Lorraine, the department of Vosges is one of the oldest. An original post-revolution department, Vosges has a rich history and long traditions easily overlooked by the casual observer. Just looking out from a vacation villa at the densely wooded countryside from Saint-Julien, a visitor would be too impressed with the natural splendor to contemplate the hard work that has kept it that way.

Hidden within those rolling hills are hydropathic springs reputed as having restorative powers. Whether it’s the water itself or just the tranquil setting of a bubbling spring bathed in slanting jade sunlight, the regenerative reputation of those springs is well deserved. Dramatic waterfalls, placid mountain lakes and a host of protected flora and fauna–including wild boar–are all accessible by hiking, climbing or biking. Contact the local tourist board for motor tours.

Sitting atop one of these pastoral foothills is Saint-Julien. With only 130 inhabitants, this escape in the countryside defines ‘get-away-from-it-all.’ This 19th century villa, the Domaine de St Julien, is an ideal base to explore any or all of the local natural wonders by foot, car or bike. If you want a real change of pace try floating along on your own personal cloud by trying your hand at paragliding. Moving no faster than a passing cloud with some practice, paragliding will give you a highly enviable point of view and photographs you will be proud to show off.