Cooking or culinary holidays, vacations, tours in Spain:

Spanish cooking school
. . . Spanish and Mediterranean cooking

Newly opened in one of the sunniest parts of Spain . . . a wonderful country house with its own cookery school, swimming pool and six acres of grounds offering relaxing holidays and superb food, with or without cooking classes.

Finca Alta Cocina comprises two houses and is in delightful countryside close to Algodonales in Andalucia. It is near Ronda, probably the most stunning pueblo blanco (white hill town) in Spain.

The finca provides first-class but affordable bed and breakfast accommodation at the heart of a beautiful area where you can go bird watching, wildlife spotting, walking, horse riding, cycling, hot-air ballooning or simply relax by the pool.

Algodonales, a pueblo blanco, is world-famous for its paragliding and hang gliding. There are four flying schools in the town where you can have lessons and/or hire equipment. From Finca Alta Cocina you can watch the fliers take off from the top of a mountain. We have had couples staying with us where one goes flying, the other takes cookery lessons and keeps an eye on their flying partner in the sky . . . and the couples meet up later to enjoy the excellent cuisine of Finca Alta Cocina.

From the time of your arrival to the time of your departure you will enjoy the comfort and peacefulness of staying at Finca Alta Cocina in the heart of the stunning countryside of Andalucia in Southern Spain. We have five double en suite rooms with balconies, a guest lounge with a terrace, a terrace round the pool where you can relax, sunbathe and perhaps read a book . . . and a pergola where you can retreat to away from the sun if it all gets too hot for you. It is a wonderful opportunity to drop out and escape from the stresses of modern living . . . a chance to slow up and, if you choose, learn the secrets of Mediterranean cooking (with the emphasis on Spanish dishes) or just discovering the art of really taking it nice and easy . . .

As well as the meals provided on the cookery courses, other meals are available by prior arrangement.

A terrace at Finca Alta Cocina	The 12 x 6 metre swimming pool
The cookery school kitchen	The guests’ lounge

Three day cookery holiday in southern Spain . . .

Cooking holidays at Finca Alta Cocina run from Friday to Sunday with guests departing on the Monday morning, and from Monday to Wednesday with guests departing on the Thursday morning. You can increase the length of your stay on a bed and breakfast basis.

DAY 1

• Arrive for tapas lunch with wine at 1:00pm.
• Cookery class 4:30pm to 8:00pm
• Three course dinner with wine 9:00 to 9:30pm

DAY 2

• Breakfast 9:00am
• Cookery class 10:00am to 1:30pm
• Lunch with wine 2:00pm
• Free afternoon and evening

DAY 3

• Breakfast 9:00am
• Cookery class 10:00am to 1:30pm
• Lunch with wine 2:00pm
• Free afternoon
• Three course farewell dinner with wine at 9:00pm

DAY 4

• Breakfast, vacate room by 11:00am

Partners and friends of guests on the three-day break who do not want the cookery lessons are welcome to enjoy the food that the cooking partner helped prepare.

Finca Alta Cocina, and Southern Spain, is well served by airports with cheap flights from Britain. Ryanair fly into Jerez (50 minutes away) and Seville (an hour). Easyjet fly into Malaga (90 minutes away) . . . all with drives through delightful countryside.

The finca is a few minutes drive from the main A382 road just outside Algodonales. The road runs from Jerez to Ronda and is joined shortly before Algodonales by the A376 from Seville.

Although the cookery school is just minutes from the main road, at Finca Alta Cocina you are in another, most tranquil world. The only traffic hold ups you may encounter on the farm road to the finca are flocks of sheep and goats being moved by shepherds.

We recommend hiring a car at the airport (details on request) so you can tour the ever-changing countryside around us. Hire cars are a competitive price and simply not paying for an airport taxi would cover a week's car hire from Malaga and go a long way towards one from Jerez or Seville.

Southern Spain is famous for the most reliable weather in Europe. And Algodonales in the south of Andalucia is a mecca for paragliding and hang gliding, with the best conditions anywhere in Europe. The area is in incredible countryside - and the stunning location makes paragliding and hand-gliding here even more exhilarating. There are four flying schools in the town where you can have lessons, hire equipment . . . or just fly. They cater for experienced fliers and complete beginners.

Often fliers spot where vultures have found a thermal and head in that direction. And it happens the other way around, with vultures joining the fliers in a thermal and soaring up alongside them. From Finca Alta Cocina you can see fliers launching themselves off a high mountain.

For the experienced flier, the local XC record stands at over 200k but the potential for over 400 is there. No Airspace restrictions are over the site itself or nearby but on big XC you will need to have studied the map.

For the complete novice, step by step tuition is on hand from highly trained instructors.

Local flying school owner Gerry Ganter says: “The climate here is fabulous - even the winters are much better for thermal flying than the summer in the UK or Germany. Maybe we lose 2 or 3 weekends during the winter, but nearly every day of the rest of the year we get thermal flying. We are just far enough away from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic not to get the influence of the sea.”

ALGODONALES

Algodonales is an ideal base for walking, cycling (bikes are available), horse riding, paragliding (parapenting) and hot air ballooning - and for wildlife lovers and bird watchers The rare griffon vulture roosts on the Lijar mountain immediately behind Algodonales, named after Algodon (cotton), which grows in the area. There is a stork living just opposite Finca Alta Cocina and you can spot grey and black herons by the nearby River Guadalete. There are many species of birds in the area including different types of vultures, eagles, owls and cuckoos.

Artists and photographers will be in their element with all the beauty around them.

This pueblo blanco has a big, attractive square in the centre. There are plenty of bars, restaurants and shops in the town, which has a population of nearly 6,000. In the morning rush-hour (sorry, Spaniards never rush) . . . in the morning dawdle from around 6am the workers park their cars and vans all over the centre of town and crush into the bars for breakfast - often just toast with garlic rubbed into it and olive oil drizzled on top, and coffee.

Algodonales and the Lijar mountain	The town square in Algodonales

It would take weeks to go on a bar crawl in the town. There are masses of bars, sometimes three or more virtually next to each other. Some are just a front room of a home converted to a bar.

There are mini shops like this too. One would be crowded with two customers in it. Many items are displayed, including fresh meat, chickens and bread delivered daily, but most of the wide variety of stock is in a room tucked away behind where the elderly woman running the shop regularly disappears into.

The world-famous La Serrania flamenco guitars are made in Algodonales by Valeriana Bernal. As well as producing a magical sound, they are beautifully crafted. And there is a pottery workshop where they create unusual Andalucian designs to order that make stylish, inexpensive mementoes or gifts for friends.

Zahara pueblo blanco and its magnificent lake

GREAT NATURAL PARKS

There is a vast acreage of outstanding natural parks in the area. One starts just down the road from Finca Alta Cocina. Algodonales is close to Sierra de Grazalema natural park, one of Spain's most ecologically outstanding areas. The 127,000 acre park is famous for its spectacular rugged limestone landscape of cliffs, gullies, caves and gorges.

The most impressive gorge is Garganta Verde, with its exceptional griffon vulture colony and rocky walls that tower for 400 metres. Andalucia's largest cave system is here, the Hundidero-Galo with its biggest cavern four kilometres long and an entrance 60 metres high. The pueblo blanco of Grazalema itself is charming. It has grace and style and some excellent restaurants.

Sierra de Grazalema is part of the incredible Los Alcornocales Natural Park, one of the world's most important cork oak forests, covering 425,000 acres. You could spend months driving / cycling / walking through the park and you would never get bored with its trees, flora, fauna and birds.

RONDA

In Hemingway's Footsteps . . .

Regarded by many as the most beautiful of all the pueblos blancos in Spain, Ronda is perched in the hills between Seville and Malaga. Its dramatic setting, hanging high in the cliffs above a river splitting the town in two, has inspired poets and artists for generations.

It's where Ernest Hemingway frequently stayed and he used it as the setting for his bestseller For Whom the Bell Tolls, about the Spanish Revolution. Another Hemingway classic was a study of the bullfight, Death In The Afternoon. The American writer felt that a bullfight was a tragedy, not a sport.

Other famous devotees of Ronda include Orson Wells (there's a statue of him in the town and a road named after him), and Hollywood superstar Cary Grant. It has the country's oldest bullring where concerts are sometimes held. Whether you are for or against bullfighting, the bullring is worth a tour.

Ronda retains much of its historic charm, particularly the old part. It is famous world-wide for its dramatic and stunning views, with the deep El Tajo gorge that carries the Rio Guardalevin through its centre. Visitors make a beeline for the 18th Century Puente Nuevo – new bridge – which straddles the 100-metre chasm below, for its unparalleled views over the Serrania de Ronda mountains. Make sure you have a coffee or a snack outside the rear of the parador next to the bridge to enjoy the most spectacular view in the town.

Ronda is famous as the birthplace of modern bullfighting. At the beginning of September there is a spectacular Feria Goyesca where bullfighters and some of the audience dress in the manner of Goya’s sketches of life in the region. Legendary Rondeno matador Pedro Romero broke away from the old Jerez school of horseback bullfighting in the 18th Century to start a style of bullfighting where matadors stood their ground against the bull on foot.

Across the bridge, where an elegant cloistered Sixteenth Century convent is now an art museum, old Ronda winds off into the cobbled streets hemmed in by handsome town mansions, some still occupied by Ronda’s titled families. The Casa de Don Bosco is a fine example, despite the fact that its interior patio was long ago roofed in glass against Ronda’s harsh winters. Its small, almost folly-like gardens lose out to the true star a few minutes walk away to the far end of the city. The Palacio Mondragon, clumsily modernised in parts during the 1960s, still has working vestiges of the exquisite miniature water gardens dating from its time as a Moorish palace in the Twelfth Century.

The cobbled alley to the Mondragon leads to Ronda’s loveliest public space, the leafy Plaza Duquesa de Parcent, which has a convent, two churches, including the bell tower of the Iglesia Santa Maria de Mayor, and handsome arched town hall. Nearby Calle Arminan leads down to the spacious square of the traditional workers barrio, San Francisco, with excellent bars and restaurants.

Back from the Mondragon, the Plaza del Campillo overlooks steps that zigzag down to a dramatic eye-level through the Puente Nuevo. A stroll down the pedestrianised main street, Calle Espinel opposite the bullring, is a must.

ZAHARA

This beautiful white hill town, just a 15 minute drive from Finca Alta Cocina, has a magnificent lake which is an alluring turquoise in the sunshine. You can swim in the lake, hire canoes and kayaks, and enjoy a drink and tapas in or outside the lakeside restaurant. The full majesty of the lake can be really appreciated as you drive above it into the Grazalema mountains.

The town of Zahara is very pretty with several restaurants - one with great views to the lake below.