Our Home Exchange Christmas 2011 By IVHE.com Member Richard Maloney
When my partner and I travel, where it makes sense, we try and find an apartment or home exchange property with a nice kitchen where I can prepare some of our meals using the freshest seasonal ingredients.
This past holiday season, for two weeks we stayed at an excellent IVHE.com home swap in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Being able to self-cater there helped us stay healthier during our sojourn: dining out in restaurants and hotels for all breakfasts, lunches and dinners, quickly add up to a lot of calories! Further, having a great kitchen space in our Vallarta vacation home exchange gave me an opportunity to explore my interests in culinary-cultural experimentation. Cooking in another country, with totally different ingredients, is a challenge that I enjoy with gusto. Of course, having previous Mexican travels and a Tlaxcala-based weeklong cooking class experience under my belt, really helped me to make the most out of amazing culinary opportunities I found exploring Vallarta’s wonderful food markets and gourmet shops. If you like Mexican cuisine and cookery, Vallarta is the place in Mexico to cook your heart out. Amazingly ingredients are all there, just waiting for you!
Here are some of my favourite markets and shops to source great ingredients and products in Vallarta:
Mercado ‘5 de Diciembre’
Best market in town, with excellent produce and seafood. A popular tortilleria is on site to stock up on all sorts of tortilla, soft, baked or fried. Take a taxi to this market, ask driver to wait, do your shopping, then get dropped off back at your pad. I recommend visiting this market earlier rather than later, arriving around 9:00 a.m. Our favourite fishmongers are at ‘Pescaderia La Morena’, selling red snapper, black sea bream, and shrimps and prawns of all sizes.
Excellent farmer’s market every Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. All sorts of vendors set up shop here, featuring local growers, and artisan food makers selling homemade breads, tamales, empanadas, pies, B.B.Q. meats, dairy products, pickles, preserves and so on.
A convenient B.B.Q. chicken take-out shop where you can order a quarter, half or whole chicken, beautifully grilled. Order a whole chicken or more, and they throw in extras like a grilled jalapeño and green bell pepper, plus, nice fresh homemade tomato sauce.
Temperature controlled wine shop where you can purchase higher quality wines than what is available in supermarkets and liquor stores in Vallarta. Portfolio features wines from Mexico, Argentina, and Chile, with a decent collection of Champagne, Prosecco and other sparkling wines. Another plus: this wine shop is located in the upmarket ‘Los Mercados’ gourmet shopping gallery housing a nice butchery, bakery and produce sections, equaling a convenient one-stop shopping experience.
Lastly, there are many excellent restaurants in Vallarta, and these were our favourites:
Home swap /trade with us, and we will include Complimentary lunch or dinner inside our restaurant Rundles, including
very interesting and local Ontario wines to pair with your meal and
airport transfer included*
* (May 25th thru September 29th, 2012.) We look forward to hosting you!
Love home swap's and try
IVHE.com now with a 1 years free trial and you too will be enjoying vacations like the above! Remember to use BL10 in the promo box for your free year.
Offer ends 15th March 2012, no other offer can be used in conjunction with this one.
To find out more about luxury home swap /vacation house exchange contact me at suzie@ivhe.com
We have been home swap members of IVHE for two and a half years. In that time we have used our our Dordogne holiday home to have fabulous vacations in Tobago, Venice and Dorset, England. Our house in the Dordogne in France (property no. 0552) is ideal for groups as well as families.
Spring and autumn have a lovely climate for your home exchange, with the opportunity to visit the many historic chateaux including Beynac, Fenelon (near the village), Castelnaud, Montfort and the famous river village of La Roque Gageac. Other attractions include the prehistoric caves at Les Eyzies, Rocamadour and the gardens at Manoir d'Eyrignac, Jardins de Cadiot (Carlux). Also, the famous Romanesque abbey at Souillac and beautiful medieval town of Sarlat. There are also beautiful walks and cycle tracks (hire in the village or nearby town) - as well as canoeing and fishing.
But of course one of the main draws is the wonderful restaurants - several within easy walking distance of our house in the pretty village of St.Julien de Lampon. Our favourites include La Gabarre with it's blackboard focus on regional specialities, So why not use your vacation home exchange to live the French experience with fresh croissants and delicious bread from the local boulangerie, a short walk from the house?
