For the second travel week, I signed up for a DIScovery trip to Southern France and it was 100% the best decision I’ve made. Before leaving, I was hitting the point in the semester where I was feeling homesick and getting stressed about classes and travel planning and internship applications (the list goes on). Let me tell you, there is no better (or Nicer) cure to mid-semester blues than a trip to Nice.
The whole trip was planned and it was amazing to take a break and not stress about having to figure out activities and transportation. They booked our week so every day was full of wine tastings, beautiful views, amazing feasts and a ton of hands-on learning about food and wine. I can’t do this post without a huge shoutout and thank you to our trip leader, Russ (the same Russ that leads my wine club). He is actually the best.
Pictures don’t really do it justice but here are some glimpses into the best parts of the trip:
Food
The theme of the trip was “culinary exploration,” so I came in with pretty high expectations for the week. The trip completely exceeded those. I am pretty sure I had a food baby for 5 straight days and I have not one complaint. We had some pretty extravagant dinners, and I tried a lot of foods that I wouldn’t typically order (such as raw seafood). Although I didn’t love every single thing I tried (re: raw seafood), I was excited to get the opportunity to try new things and step out of my comfort zone.
Wine Tastings
A trip to Southern France would not be complete without wine. The region is known mostly for their rosé wines, but we got to try a good variety of red and whites as well. We visited three vineyards, where we were given tours and tastings. It was great to build on what I had learned in wine club and actually get to see how the wine gets made.
More tastings
In addition to wine tastings, we also got to do a cheese tasting and an olive oil tasting, two things I had no idea even existed before this week. For the cheese tasting, we were given several varieties of cheese and 4 glasses of wine. We tried each cheese with each wine and it was really crazy to see how differently I felt about the cheeses and wines based on the different pairings. For the olive oil tasting, we tried eight different kinds of olive oil. They would come around and put a small drop of each oil on your tasting spoon and tell us a bit about how its made and what recipes you could make with it. I had no idea that olive oil could be so nuanced, but ended up loving the lemon, garlic and truffle varieties.
Picnics with a view
We spent the first part of the trip in Fayence and my favorite part was the picnic. We had a “market challenge” where we broke into groups and each group focused on a different part of the picnic like breads, cheeses, spreads & tapenades, etc. We were given cash to spend on our part of the picnic and we reconvened as a group around lunchtime. Russ picked a spectacular location for a picnic. It involved a lot of walking, but we had incredible views and so much food. Russ also got six different kinds of rosé wine, so we did a tasting of our own.
French cooking class
One of the coolest activities was the French cooking class. We got to help French chefs make a three-course lunch, and every course involved something with flower petals. We had a cold tomato soup with rose petals, violet-stuffed duck breasts and a rose tiramisu.
Nice times with nice people
We also had some time to explore and see Nice, which is a beautiful city. I went on the trip with my friend Kelli, but we left with some nice new friends, too (pun intended).
chlo-penhagen 