by Anna Goldrein, with photography by Jon Martin

Coming home with a tan sometimes simply isn't good enough. Now we're expected to build up our skill sets as well as our colour over a short break. But I'm not talking about sweating over books in the schoolroom. Think wine-tasting in a Bordeaux Chateau, flamenco dancing in Jerez and learning to sail in Croatia. Suddenly, holiday homework doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

Bordeaux Wines

I went on a three-day class in the prestigious Bordeaux Wine School recently. I have now become an authority on wine. People ask me to taste wine, ask my opinion on which bottles to buy and treat me as little short of a qualified sommelier. Of course, I still know very little about wine. But thanks to the course I have learned to analyse smells and tastes. Above all, I have learned how to learn.

The course I attended comes highly recommended. It's the perfect combination of intensive tasting in the language laboratory (most mornings) and vineyard visits. When we started, I understood next to nothing, although the course was held in English. While our teacher spoke of blackcurrant notes, cooked fruit or minty flavours, I stared at the sticky dark substance in my glass, inhaled and smelt wine! Everyone in the class looked equally bemused, but we took notes on each of around 30 wines in our degustation (tasting) books.

Gradually the new discipline bore fruit. I began to distinguish the coffee notes from the caramel, grass smell from aniseed and stale onion from bad eggs (it is as important to recognise a bad wine as a good one). I could compare and contrast two glasses of wine and confirm which was the older vintage. I learned that wines are sensitive to everything that touches them - from location (in Bordeaux, this means left bank, right bank or entre-deux-mers) to period and method of maturation, soil, sub-soil, sunshine and grape varieties. Drunk with triumph, the class could at last participate. "I can smell pepper", shouted out one. "Vanilla scents", said another. At last. The scents were making sense.

Course: The beginners course includes wine course and tastings, the two first lunchtime meals (restaurant and chateau) and chateau visits. Accommodation is not included but the CIVB can provide a list of hotels. Alternatively, contact the Bordeaux Tourist Office on +33 (0) 5 56 00 66 00 or www.bordeaux-tourisme.com.

Cost: From €25 per person for a two-hour course to €645 for an intensive four-day course.

Contact:
Ecole du Vin
1 cours du 30 Juillet
33075 Bordeaux, France
Tel: + (33) 5 56 00 22 66. Fax: + (33) 5 56 00 22 82
Email: ecole@vins-bordeaux.fr
www.ecole.vins-bordeaux.fr.

French Class in Provence

I was back at school. But after a breakfast of fresh croissants, pain au chocolat, brioche and garden-fresh fruit, learning didn't seem such a hardship. We were sitting around an oval table in one of the largest rooms of an intimate chateau, set amid Provencal vineyards. At breakfast, our host Martine had been charming, slouching around in her tracksuit, like one of us. But now class had started and, as the clock struck 10am, she reappeared wearing a pair of severe glasses and bearing sheets of photocopies. No more Madame Nice Guy.

There were six of us students. A charming, well-travelled couple from Australia who loved everything French, a sprightly lady from New Zealand whose fragmentary French slotted into place as soon as she went shopping, an inquisitive psychologist who mastered the written but not as yet the spoken language, photographer Jon and myself. We had all different levels of French. But Martine managed to include and engage everyone and, though the course lasted a mammoth two hours, it ended in fun and games.

Provence-born Martine Baboin and south of France addict Miriam Macpherson, founders of French Class, believe that to learn the French language, you must soak up French culture. Hence mornings spent sweating over French grammar were balanced by afternoons of exploration into the nearby hilltop village of Saignon, Apt's extensive Saturday market or soaking up the art de vivre in the chateau's open-air swimming pool.

French Class runs several courses a year, which are organised, like the best French menus, according to the season. In spring/summer, swim in the chateau pool, in autumn/winter, hunt the truffles.

The courses vary in length, but all include full board accommodation, morning classes and organised activities.

Contact:
French Class
32 Glenmorre Road
Paddington 2021
Sydney, Australia
Email info@frenchclass.com.au or visit their website www.frenchclass.com.au
Tel 02 9380 2672 or 0404 259 986 (you will be able to contact a French mobile number in the weeks leading up to your course).

Painting in Provence

OK, so your name may not be Cézanne or Picasso, but maybe if you follow in the footsteps of the masters to the sunny south of France, you will catch their talent like a cold.

At the Maison des Arts, talented English artist and patient tutor Mitch Waite offers an intensive and passionate painting course, in the peaceful village of La Colle sur Loup, near Nice.

The one-week course comprises charcoal, gouache, acrylic, oils and watercolours as well as tackling perspective, colour mixing, still life, landscapes, street scenes and portraiture.

It's serious stuff! Classes begin at 9am and, except for a lunch break, last until 5.30pm. But on the plus side, you get excellent teaching, attractive accommodation in a restored 18th century house with garden (each bedroom is named after an artist), and an all-inclusive package. If your partner doesn't paint, they can skip the classes (and their cost) but enjoy Provence and the fine food of Mitch's Swedish wife, Hanna, to the full.

The Maison des Arts also offers courses in Creative Thinking and Stress Management.

Courses: One week courses run every alternate week. The course includes six days of tuition, full board accommodation, transfer to and from Nice International Airport, all drinks, Provencal Cookery Class, excursions, professional art materials, use of sculpture studios, complimentary souvenir CD recording your course and three months free exhibition of your paintings in the Maison des Arts Internet gallery.

Cost: Courses start at £900 per person for one day, to £2,441 for a four-day course.

Contact:
Maison des Arts
10 Rue Marechal Foch
06480 La Colle sur Loup
Tel +33 (0) 4 93 32 32 50
Fax +33 (0) 4 93 32 32 59
info@maisondesarts.com
www.maisondesarts.com

Stained-glass Window-Making

First, measure up the windows in your home. Then head for the little village of Martel (near Brive) in the Lot, two hours drive north from Toulouse. You will be staying chez stained-glass window maestro, Leo Amery (from London) and his French wife, Claudine and dedicating six hours per day to learning the craft.

In your free time, you will be dining on Claudine's south-western cuisine. Courses are in English and French - so you can improve your language along with your art.

Courses: One week per month

Cost: 5-day beginners' course costs £445 (supplementary £45-75 for materials). This includes accommodation, breakfast, lunch and dinner on the night of arrival. Check costs.

Contact: The Amery Family, Bagadou Bas, 466000 Martel
Tel +33 (0) 5 65 37 40 07.
Fax +33 (0) 5 65 37 44 56

Paris Promenades Gourmandes with Paule Caillat

Gourmet on Tour offer around 25 programmes in France, blending good food with a healthy dose of French culture. Options are available in Bordeaux, Normandy, Provence, Burgundy, the Dordogne and Paris.

For those short on time and big on food, Promenades Gourmandes with Paule Caillet is a good option. This non-residential day course can be fitted into a weekend break or even work wonders for Eurostar day-trippers. Meet with Cordon Bleu chef and guide Paule Caillet and let her guide you around the food heart of Paris, from the best markets to choice butchers, and the cavernous kitchens of the Hotel de Crillon. You can then return to Caillat's kitchen in the Marais district and cook your shopping. Then eat it over a leisurely and well earned lunch. In the afternoon you will be seeking out specialist delicatessens and cheese makers, as well as the famous Poilâne bakery and Dehillerin, Paris' landmark kitchen equipment emporium.

Course: Day courses run every day of the week except Sunday and Monday when markets are closed and August when Paris is closed (except for the tourists!).

Cost: Approx £125 for a half day's promenade.

Contact: Tel: 020 7396 5550
www.gourmetontour.com.