Upon arrival this morning in Madrid according to your own flight schedule, you will be met and transferred to the 4-star Hotel Bauza, located on fashionable Calle Goya in downtown Madrid. The afternoon begins with a walking tour of Madrid’s Old City including the famous Plaza Mayor, ending at one of our favorite local restaurants where we will enjoy a typical Spanish lunch with wine and a wonderful array of appetizers. After returning to our hotel, the remainder of the day and evening is yours to spend as you desire. (Pre-tour hotel nights are available.)

After breakfast and check out, we will depart Madrid for the city of Burgos in Spain’s Castile region. Founded in 883, Burgos was the capital of both Castile and Léon from 1073-1492. Well known for its stunning medieval architecture, Burgos is home to one of the grandest Gothic cathedrals in all of Spain. We’ll have lunch at a local restaurant followed by a tour of the cathedral and walking tour through the old city.
    Continuing on through scenic countryside, later this afternoon we’ll arrive in the La Rioja region where some of Spain’s finest wines are produced. After settling into our hotel in Logroño, the capital of La Rioja, we’ll enjoy dinner at one of the area’s best-known restaurants and sample a selection of complementary Rioja wines.

This morning we’ll visit some well-known La Rioja wine producers. First we’ll travel to the town of Haro and Muga Bodega, one of the region’s finest wineries, to learn about the old and new methods of wine making. From Haro we’ll drive to the hilltop medieval village of Laguardia, located in the Basque province of Alava. We’ll take a walking tour of this beautiful walled village that overlooks the Ebro River. From this mountaintop vantage we’ll see below the next winery we’ll visit, Bodegas Ysios. This architectural masterpiece by famous Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava, is not only a sculpture in itself, but a state-of-the-art wine making facility, whose aluminum and cedar exterior façade resembles a row of wine barrels—a stunning site.
    Our afternoon will feature a visit to Dinastia Vivanco Winery Museum, the most complete wine museum in Spain. We’ll conclude our day back in Logroño, where we will indulge in a traditional tapas dinner before returning to the hotel.

Day 4  Tue, May 8                                                                                      B/L/D
Guggenhiem-Bilbao Museum – Santillana del Mar    

After check-out this morning, we will depart La Rioja for Spain’s northern coast and the Basque capital of Bilbao. This Spanish industrial hub is the unlikely setting for the architectural jewel, the Frank Gehry designed, Guggenheim-Bilbao Museum. It is an exciting museum of modern art that draws everyone into its astounding galleries with its undulating walls and lofty, titanium clad, fish-scaled roof. We’ll take a brief guided tour and then allow time for exploration on your own of this world-famous museum.
    In the afternoon we’ll travel along the Costa Verde and through the seaside city of Santander to the romantic cobblestone village of Santillana del Mar. This peaceful village, whose origin dates back to the 8th century, features winding cobblestone lanes and stone houses with regal coats-of-arms in relief. Our parador accommodation is a converted manor house at the edge of a bustling plaza where we can visit local art museums, see the 12th-century Romanesque La Colegiata church, and shop for a variety of traditional crafts, foods and wines.

Day 5  Wed, May 9                                                                                    B
Altamira Neo Cave – Gaudi’s El Capricho – Santillana del Mar

We’ll begin our day with a visit to the new Altamira Museum, where we’ll gain a greater appreciation of the complex lives of the prehistoric people who lived in the region more than 16,000 years ago. During our visit to the Altamira Neo Cave, we’ll see an exact replica of the colorful cave paintings found in the original Altamira caves (now closed to the public). There will be time for a self-guided tour of the museum.
    From the museum we will drive through scenic countryside to the seaside resort town of Comillas, notable for its beautiful beaches and Antonio Gaudi’s northwestern-most architectural creation, El Capricho. Returning to Santillana del Mar, we will have the rest of the day for lunch and dinner on our own, and to explore the shops and quaint streets of this picturesque village.

Day 6  Thu, May 10                                                                                    B/L
Covolanas Cave – San Sebastian 

After breakfast and checkout we’ll travel to the intimate Covalanas Cave. The uphill walk to this seldom-visited cave is well worth the effort — incredible valley views and within the cave itself beautiful representations of monochrome Paleolithic art. The highlight of Covalanas is its 12-meter panel featuring over 22 figures including horse and reindeer. After lunch, today’s travels will conclude in the beautiful seaside resort city of San Sebastian, an important Basque cultural center. Perfectly situated on a shell-shaped bay, San Sebastian is Spain’s most elegant and fashionable resort city. With dinner this evening on your own, you can walk to the lively old town, whose narrow streets are lined with shops and restaurants featuring delectable Spanish tapas late into the evening.

Day 7  Fri, May 11                                                                                     B/D
San Sebastian – Pyrenees Mountains – St. Girons, France    

After breakfast we will take a walking tour of San Sebastian’s old town. During the tour you are welcome to leave the group for shopping or enjoying tapas at a sidewalk café prior to returning to the hotel. This afternoon, we’ll bid farewell to Spain and cross the frontier into France driving east along the foothills of the Pyrenees to the town of St. Girons. To the east and south of our hotel, the snowcapped Pyrenees hide the limestone caves of Niaux Cave and Les Vaches Living Site. These sites offer insight into the geological formations, living conditions and painting techniques at the end of the Ice Age, some 10-15,000 years ago. Tonight, we will dine on fine regional French cuisine in St. Girons.

This morning we will visit the most famous cave in the French Pyrenees, Niaux Cave. Its contemplative mood, simple line art and contrasting black images on cream colored walls never fail to impress and move each visitor, as it must have done for the children, women and men of the Ice Age. Many modern visitors find this experience inspirational because of the long walk to the Salon Noir (Black Room) where the paintings are arranged within a ‘chapel’, the ceiling towering sixty feet above. Upon leaving the cave, a peaceful green valley and snow-capped mountains stretch out before you.
    After lunch at a French country inn, we will visit La Vache Living Site, one of the greatest archaeological sites in the Pyrenees - more than one million artifacts, including animal bones, fire places, flint tools, and weapons for hunting and fishing have been discovered here. Some the best are on display at the Site’s small but excellent museum.
    Our stay in the Pyrenees concludes as we drive north through the city of Toulouse to the Lot Valley, the most picturesque river valley in France. Towering vertical cliffs of limestone closely bound the meandering Lot River.
    Upon arrival in Cahors, we will cross the beautiful Pont Valentré, a 14^th century fortified bridge, with seven pointed arches and three towers, that spans the Lot River and sits beside the ancient wellspring that still provides the city’s water.

After breakfast we will visit Grotte de Pech-Merle. This spectacular cave, featuring huge chambers painted with mammoths, horses and bison, is noted for its image of the famous spotted horses, as well as some of the most enigmatic images of “injured” men and tectiforms, a geometric form yet to be deciphered.
    This afternoon we’ll stroll the streets of Cahors to see Pont Valentré Bridge, and the fortress-like St. Etienne Cathedral which dominates the old town and provides a fine example of medieval architecture.

Day 10  Mon, May 14                                                                                 B/L/D
Dordogne Valley – Medieval Castles   

This morning we’ll depart Cahors and drive through the romantic Dordogne River Valley, where we will take a boat trip down the Dordogne River to the village of La Roque-Gageac, which precariously clings to a cliff face. Our afternoon will be devoted to the rich local history of medieval castles and fortified towns fought over for generations. We’ll tour the majestic English castle of Castelnaud and its superb Museum of War, which displays weapons and armor used during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. From the Castle, we’ll gaze across the beautiful valley to see Castelnaud’s French rival, the massive Chateau de Beynac - this is one of the greatest panoramic views in all of France. Later, we will arrive at our home base for the next four nights in Les Eyzies, on the Vezere River.

This morning is yours to become acquainted with the richness of the prehistory, geography and cuisine of this most beautiful region of France. There are wonderful walks in and around the village Les Eyzies, an abundance of fine and reasonably priced restaurants, an important recently expanded National Archaeological Museum, and the impressive site of Cro-Magnon, the place where pre-historians first discovered fossil humans anatomically like ourselves. This will be among the most photogenic villages you will visit in France.
    In the afternoon we will break into small groups and visit nearby Font de Gaume Cave. The paintings within reflect early man’s spiritual attachment to powerful animals, when the chase was something more than just hunting. Later, we’ll visit Les Combarelles Cave, which is like the workshop of an ancient engraver. It is a great sinuous corridor along which engraving after engraving was carved into the limestone. Truly a wonder! The hundreds of images are not only of animals; rare engraved human forms and tectiforms are also depicted.

This morning will highlight the incomparable art of Lascaux Cave. Discovered in 1940 by four teenagers, this cave with its sixteen hundred figures is one of the most renowned archeological discoveries of the 20^th century. We will visit Lascaux II, the amazing exact duplicate of the Hall of Bulls in the original Lascaux (now closed), where every animal painting was meticulously reproduced, providing an opportunity for us to study this pinnacle of cave art created 17,600 years ago.
    Later today, we will visit the beautiful medieval village of Sarlat-la-Caneda. You’ll have time for lunch and to wander through the town’s narrow streets past gourmet shops (famous for truffles, foie gras and fruit brandies) and revel at the architecture - left unspoiled for nearly 1000 years.

Today we will visit two very exceptional sites. The one-kilometer ride on a small electric train within Rouffignac Cave is one of the best conservation ideas ever put into practice. Called ‘The Cave of a Hundred Mammoths’, Rouffignac has art of greater diversity than the name suggests. The rare woolly rhino, horses and ibex (a type of mountain goat) are so vivid that there was controversy over some claims that the art was a forgery.
    Cap Blanc Cave offers more than painting and engraving. Here, we will see high-relief that goes beyond mere shallow picking, to reveal horses of life-sized dimension carved into the cliff wall, some so deeply sculpted that they almost appear to be statues overlooking the site where the carvers lived.

Today we will transition from the calm of rural Les Eyzies to the bustling wine region of Bordeaux, and the sophisticated and lively city of St. Emilion. This will be the perfect opportunity to purchase fine regional wines. After lunch, there will be time for a brief walk through this charming medieval city. From St. Emilion, we will travel a short distance to the cosmopolitan city of Bordeaux.
    Bordeaux is the capital of the Aquitaine region, is its largest city and one of France’s oldest trading ports, with over 44 million cases of wine exported annually. Our hotel is situated nearby great shopping and restaurants. Enjoy time on your own before our farewell dinner.