VACATION HIGHLIGHTS
Please note: Our tours are designed
with flexible itineraries to accommodate
seasonality and desired dates of travel.
•6 Nights B&B Accommodations
•Mexico City Round-Trip Transfers
•All Meals & Beverages During Tour
•Day of the Dead Festival in Puebla
•4 Traditional Pueblan Cooking Classes
•Cultural History Tour of Old Tlaxcala
•Guided Produce & Spice Market Tour
•Festival & Holiday Recipe Focus
•Free Day for you to Design
•Farewell Dinner with Music
While our tours are designed as soft adventure experiences, walking, climbing stairs,
and in rare cases mild hiking may be required. If you have mobility issues, you should
speak with one of our culinary travel specialists to determine if this tour is
appropriate for your situation.
AVAILABLE DATES
One week only! October 30th - November 5th, 2020. Please note that this tour has an arrival on Friday and departure on Thursday in order to accommodate all Day of the Dead festivities.
SAMPLE ITINERARY
Please note: Actual itineraries are subject to change due to seasonality.
(click item for details)
Day 1
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Airport Transfers from Mexico City
Once your private driver has met you at the airport, your vacation begins, and you are here to relax, unwind, and enjoy yourself while you learn Mexican home cooking. From Mexico City Airport, your 1.5-hour drive will be via a modern 4-lane expressway over pine-covered mountains. Your package also includes a return to Mexico City airport via the Luxury Airport Shuttle, which departs every half-hour from Puebla non-stop to your airline at the airport.
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Welcome Dinner with Magical Margaritas!
Upon arrival at Casa Carmelita, you will enjoy a delicious, festive welcome. Relish light appetizers, drinks, and the chance to meet fellow vacationers and your hosts. Choose from soft drinks, beer, wine, or the classic Mexican drink: Margaritas. After you are settled into your room, you will enjoy a classic Pueblan dinner prepared by Doña Estela, which will set the tone for the type of cuisine you'll learn to create in your cooking classes during the week. Get ready to discover secrets passed down through generations that create the unique flavors of this delightful region.
Day 2
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Pueblan Breakfast
Each morning you will enjoy a typical breakfast of Puebla Cuisine. Weather permitting, breakfast is served on the Hacienda’s outside patio, amid the lush greenery for which this part of the country is known.
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Hands-On Cooking Class
The real gourmet cooking secrets and traditions of Puebla cuisine remained in households for special occasions; it is almost never found in restaurants. During your culinary vacation, Estela will be teaching you traditional classic recipes from the city of Puebla, as well as dishes that are unique to her family. For each day’s class, guests will work alongside Estela, preparing dishes for lunch and dinner. Classes are small, so that the close interaction with Chef Estela offers the full learning experience so vital an ingredient in any cooking class.
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Lunch on the Patio
Each day, weather permitting, lunch is served on the Hacienda’s outside patio, along with your choice of wine, beer, or a margarita. Your meal today will include: Sopa de Hongos (mushroom soup), with squash blossoms and nopal cactus, Ensalada Traditional (Traditional Salad) with Nopal, avocados, Cotija cheese, tomatoes, onions, and radishes. This is a traditional pre-Hispanic salad. Your main course will be Tortas de Papa (Mexican Potato Pancakes) with spinach, and/or shrimp, lobster or crab (depending on the season) and a Salsa Roja (red sauce), made the traditional way in a molcajete (mortar and pestle) with a cascabel chile base.
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Cultural History Tour of Old Tlaxcala
The tour of Tlaxcala’s historic center will begin at the very heart of the city. On this tour, you'll walk through almost 500 years of history, from the Holy Cross Fountain, a gift from Spanish King Felipe IV in 1646, to the former Royal Guest house in the Parish Church of Saint Joseph, which was built in 1526. Other important landmarks that you’ll visit on this tour include the former Chapel for Indigenous People which was located in Tlaxcala back in 1528 and the Royal Guest House of the Indigenous Government which was built back in 1551 to house distinguished visitors.
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Traditional Dinner Featuring Pueblan Cuisine
Each day, weather permitting, dinner is served on the outside patio of the Hacienda. You will have your choice of beer, wine, or a margarita with your meal. The menu tonight will include Amendrado (Almond Pork, duck, or chicken) usually with duck depending on availability, a luxurious sauce with Serrano chiles, tomatoes, almonds, cloves, cinnamon, and sesame seeds, adding a touch of the Middle East. This dish will be served with white rice and dill. For dessert, you will be served Buñuelos, a traditional thin fritter-like dessert dredged in vanilla sugar.
Day 3
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Pueblan Breakfast
Each morning you will enjoy a typical breakfast of Puebla Cuisine. Weather permitting, breakfast is served on the Hacienda’s outside patio, amid the lush greenery for which this part of the country is known. The menu today will be fresh juice, sincronizada (lightly sautéed flour tortillas filled with ham and Oaxacan cheese, topped with a typical sauce of the day) followed by sweet pastry, coffee or tea.
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Hands-On Cooking Class with Lunch
Your lunch today will include Crema de Flor de Calabacitas (Cream of Squash Blossom Soup), traditional Poblano soup that is a very delicate milk-based squash blossom soup with roasted poblano chile and requeson cheese (goat cheese, ricotta, or feta), finished with epazote or dill; Pipian Verde con bistec en Relleno (this dish is sometimes called a Mole Verde, stuffed beef rolls in Pipian sauce). It is a traditional Pueblan interpretation of French stuffed meat rolls with a nod to Emperor Maximilian who brought the French Court to Mexico City, and a nod to the Near East with sauce featuring sesame seeds, cumin, and cloves, and includes the indigenous pumpkin seeds. This dish is served with traditional Mexican red rice.
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Traditional Dinner Featuring Pueblan Cuisine
The menu tonight will include Bistec de Puerco o Pollo en Chile Pasilla (Beef, Pork or Chicken in Chile Pasilla Sauce). This dish features the meat in a hearty sauce based on toasted chile pasilla, tomatoes, and tomatillos with potatoes. It has the feel of a good stew, with a surprising spark and special flavor added by the pasilla. Gasnates (cream filled pastry tubes) is a traditional Poblano desert, consisting of very delicate pastry tubes filled with cream and topped with a dusting of powdered sugar. Try your “piping” skills to fill them. This can also be used with a savory filling for canapés!
Day 4
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Pueblan Breakfast
Each morning you will enjoy a typical breakfast of Puebla Cuisine. Weather permitting, breakfast is served on the Hacienda’s outside patio, amid the lush greenery for which this part of the country is known. The menu today will be fresh juice, Mexican eggs, fresh fruit with pastry of the day, coffee or tea. Chef may add a seasonal surprise.
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Hands-On Cooking Class with Lunch
Your lunch menu today includes Crema de Chile Poblano (Cream of Chile Poblano Soup) which is a light cream soup with a base of pureed charred Poblano chiles and Mexican sour cream (similar to crème fraiche) which has a very light green color. You’ll enjoy Chipotles en Conserva, a family recipe of Estela’s, which is a sweet and sour conserve with brown sugar, apple vinegar and more. This can be used like a chutney. Your main dish is Tinga (Shredded Skirt Steak), served with tomatoes and Estela’s Chipotles. It will be served with Sopes, which are small tortillas covered with Tinga and topped with lettuce and cream, as well as Guacamole. This is a poblano rendition that uses tomatillos for acidity rather than limes. You will have a choice of beer, wine, or a margarita with your lunch.
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Day of the Dead Festival & Guided Puebla Tour
Delight in the sights, sounds and tastes of the Day of the Dead festival in Puebla. On this guided tour, you'll learn more about the history and traditions of the holiday, as well as take part in the festivities! Enjoy seasonal specialty foods, while you take in elaborate ofrendas, calaveritas and other artistic expressions of the Día de los Muertos holiday. Folk songs and other musical accompaniments make this tour a feast for all the senses!
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Traditional Dinner Featuring Pueblan Cuisine
A multi-course, traditional Pueblan dinner will be enjoyed this evening. This is your opportunity to discover dishes far beyond what is normally thought of as Mexican Food. The main course will be Pipian Rojo (red Pipian with meat) in a tasty red sauce with a toasted chile guajillo, ancho sauce, and a nod to the Near East with cinnamon, tomatoes, and onions, and topped with sesame seeds. This is traditionally served with fresh rolls rather than tortillas.
Day 5
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Pueblan Breakfast
Each morning you will enjoy a typical breakfast of Puebla Cuisine. Weather permitting, breakfast is served on the Hacienda’s outside patio, amid the lush greenery for which this part of the country is known. The Menu today will be Tamales Jarocho (Tamales Veracruz Style), coffee or tea.
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Holiday & Traditional Pueblan Cooking Courses with Market Tour
Enjoy cooking classes that focus on the Día de los Muertos holiday and utilize family recipes from the kitchen of Chef Doña Eulogia Silva Castillo. Pueblan flavor is a mixture of four different cuisines. One way to get acquainted with the ingredients of the traditional dishes you will be preparing is by visiting the market in Tlaxcala. Here, you will find the most common ingredients for the endless varieties of today’s Mexican cuisine. Tomatoes, onion, cinnamon, tortillas and all varieties of chiles can be found here. Chiles anchos, pasillas, mulattos and chipotles as well as pumpkin seeds, raisins, cloves, sesame seeds, almonds, tomatillos, oil, and garlic will all be at your disposal.
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Lunch on the Patio
Your meal today will include Sopa de Tortilla (Tortilla Soup). Traditionally from Puebla, Tortilla Soup is served throughout Mexico with variations on the theme. Estela’s recipe is a tradition in her family. Chiles en Nogada is the Mexican National Dish first made for Emperor Iturbide on a visit to Puebla following a battle during the revolution from Spain in the early 1800’s. It is a luscious combination of fruit, almonds, raisins, ground pork, beef or lamb as stuffing for charred poblano chiles, which are then dredged in flour covered with batter, deep fried, covered with a light walnut sauce and topped with pomegranate seeds. The result includes the green chile, white sauce and red garnish - the national colors and the national dish. The filling of course takes a very large bow to the Near East and only lacks a cooked prune to be a Moroccan dish. Chile Rellenos: Again, very Pueblan, a more toned-down version of a stuffed Poblano. A nice counterpoint to the more outrageous chile en nogada, this is stuffed with your choice of Oaxaca or other cheese (perhaps Monterey Jack in the US) and then topped with Salsa Basica (Basic Red Sauce). This is a nice light basic red sauce with some cinnamon and cloves that is used in the Puebla area as a topping for Chile Rellenos.
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Traditional Pueblan Dinner
Tonight’s menu includes Puerco en Adobo (Pork in Adobo Sauce). Estela uses rabbit if it is available. Often you find that Adobo sauce in the US is very hot. In Pueblan cuisine, the sauce is based on Ancho Sauce for the special flavor of ancho, but as always in Estela’s classes, the heat is adjusted to the tastes of the students. The result is a very special joining of the chiles with a sugar base creating a light, almost barbeque-type sweet and sour sauce. This dish is served with white rice.
Day 6
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Pueblan Breakfast
Each morning you will enjoy a typical breakfast of Puebla Cuisine. Weather permitting, breakfast is served on the Hacienda’s outside patio, amid the lush greenery for which this part of the country is known. The menu today will be fresh juice, Molletes, a tasty combination of toasted roll covered with refried black beans, bacon, grated cheese, and topped with avocado and Mexican sour cream. You may have your choice of coffee or tea.
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Free Day to Design with Optional Activities
Free Day Optional Activities (priced separately, and not included in the base price of this tour). Some suggestions for optional excursions so you can make the most of your time in this enchanting land. Let your hosts arrange transportation for you to visit Cacaxtla, an important archeological site where well-preserved murals dating back to the Mayans await you. You can also visit La Corona Talavera factory to learn the process of making beautiful ceramic jars, pots, vases and platters, as well as other pieces. For a more active excursion, you can hike Tlaxcala’s highest peak, the dormant volcano La Malintzin. The three-hour, moderate hike to the summit results in breathtaking views, so bring your camera! If you’re looking for a guided excursion, try the Haciendas of Tlaxcala tour, where you’ll gain access to two haciendas typically closed to the public and a gorgeous church in the city of Tlaxcala.
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Cocktails, Music and Farewell Dinner
Tonight’s menu includes 5 types of Pueblan style Tamales: green tomatillo, pork/mole, chicken/ mole, tinga and red tomato with cotija cheese, serano chiles, epasote and Oaxaca cheese. Dessert will be “Suspiros de Novia,” a traditional Puebla treat. Your dinner this evening will be accompanied by a local musician serenading you with Mexican favorites under the stars.
Day 7
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Pueblan Breakfast
You will enjoy yet another wonderful breakfast consisting of fresh juice, chilequilles (toasted tortilla chips with a sauce of the day and topped with cream), accompanied by sweet pastry, coffee or tea.
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Airport Transfer Back to Mexico City Airport
It is now time to say goodbye to this beautiful part of Central Mexico. The memories are free, so take as many as you want! Your package includes a return to Mexico City airport via the Luxury Airport Shuttle, which departs every half-hour from Puebla non-stop to your airline at the airport.
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