foodies!

Have you ever considered a holiday on the water, to save the packing and moving, in a region famous for its dining, food, ingredients and/or wineries/breweries/distilleries?

I've noticed promotions or read recently of:
- Cruises alongside wine-country areas
- river trips in southern France and Germany
- have read of gourmet houseboat holidays very close to home, in the waterways of Sydney.
- right now is the best time to see the Whitsundays under sail in Australia (search Hamilton Island Race Week for more info)
- annual stories of the billionaire set's summer boat/beach/parties pre-Wimbledon in the rivieras of European hotspots.

What would you like to do, some day, that combines cruising or sailing and enjoying the good life - that is not a standard package-cruise?

Our list so far...
Cruising for whalewatching, snorkelling, scuba and seafood!
- Whitsundays (can highly recommend)
- Sydney (to do very soon).
Cruising near wineries
- NZ South Island (to do within a couple of years)
Crusing through/near European foodie destinations and sights...
- Southern Germany or France houseboat
- Mediterranean charter (both on an extended holiday in future)

To be investigated, with thanks...
- Spain, ashore at Perdiguera & Tabarca

Oh, and to make this more relevant - the food options on Australian charter boats are usually pretty good as we tend to self-cater. Hamilton Island, base for a lot of charters, has an extensive range of fresh & drygood supplies, which were better priced than I feared.

Favourites to date, onboard: barbecued king prawns and later on, Jameson cocktails. New ideas: BBQ sardines (and other tapas?) in Spain

There's an island near Alicante (Tabarca) and another in El Mar Menor in Murcia (Perdiguera) where peeople travel to by boat to eat BBQd Sardines.

Sailing to la isla Perdiguera on a friend's small yacht or going there by speedboat and eating freshly caught sardinas a la parilla by the sea with your fingers was a feature of my summer holidays.

I always returned to shore with a tan too!

I'd like to take a small watercraft up the Liffey if it were possible to pop into the St James Gate brewery and the Jameson distillery in Dublin. However I'd not be able to operate the boat afterward.

LapLap, I already want to visit, now you're giving me more reasons!
I figure I'd leave happy but needing to go for a run to work off all of the lovely feasting!

Alas I'd return only with an Irishman tan!

We were on a river cruise in the south of france for the heat wave at harvest time in 2003, the year of that great vintage. We didn't plan on harvest time, we were saving a few dollars by going a few weeks before, but Mother Nature did her magic.

Very highly recommended trip, it was a total blast. We still buy wines from the vineyards we were picking grapes in. Tasting future vintages, enjoying the many wines from the smaller wineries we can not get here, etc.

We've been on several of the small cruises like that and will probably never go back to the mass market cruise lines.

The other thing, while not gourmet foods by any stretch, was the holiday markets in germany. It was a wonderful trip, and while most of the food was grilled sausages, beer and warmed spiced wine, I'll always believe it was some of the best food we have had on any trip. We liked it so much, we brought friends over for a land trip after that. The food was a very pleasant surprise, and I'd easily go back for it again.

We would have no problems boarding another small river boat like that again.

As the rule amongst Spaniards is not to swim for a couple of hours after eating for fear of a "corte de digestion", you could do what I do and go for a hike up one of the Perdiguera's small mountains.

Satellite image of Perdiguera showing the restaurants

Sat map of Tabarca (the juxtaposed Google street map doesn't match and floats a few kms North over the empty sea) Tabarca is excellent for Scuba diving BTW - I'm guessing this photo was taken out of season.