Unless otherwise specified, transport is not included in the following prices, all levels of competence are welcome and the course is available all year round.
Spanish
Fiesta time
Seville/Barcelona
Experience Seville and Barcelona's most flamboyant fiestas while learning Spanish; Feria de Abril in Seville, 14-20 April 2003, and Festa de la Merce in Barcelona in the week around 21 September 2002. Living Spanish (020 8747 2018) offers two-week Spanish courses which coincide with the fiestas and offer two to six hours' tuition a day, full-board accommodation with a host family and social activities including dance classes, tapas evenings and museum visits for £405.
Gap year
Mexico
Before setting off around Central and South America, gap year students can get to grips with Spanish in Cuernavaca, central Mexico. Living Spanish offers four weeks' full-board with a host family and five hours' tuition a day for £800.
Lorca's literature
Granada
This is a three-week course in Granada, combining Spanish tuition for four hours a day with theoretical seminars on Spain's pre-eminent modern poet and dramatist Lorca, visits to Lorquian museums and sites, poetical and musical shows and films. Don Quijote UK (020 8786 8081) offers this course for €597 (£365). Three weeks half-board with a host family costs an extra €453 (£277).
Scuba diving
Tenerife
Plunge deep into the Atlantic ocean on this course combining scuba diving with Spanish, off the Tenerife coast. In two weeks, you get four hours' Spanish teaching per day, two swimming-pool immersions and three ocean immersions before the final-day test in the Atlantic. Don Quijote UK offers this course, including insurance and equipment, for €649 (£400). Two weeks' half-board with a host family costs an extra €372 (£228).
Salsa
Havana
Learn to communicate verbally and through dance in the salsa-crazy Cuban capital. Cactus Languages (01273 687697) offers a two-week course, including four morning Spanish lessons and two afternoon salsa lessons per day, arranged seminars, tours and evenings out for £427. Two weeks' half-board with a host family costs £330.
Turtle conservation
Costa Rica
This long-stay course (two months' minimum) combines learning Spanish with the conservation of endangered sea turtles in Costa Rica: joining coast patrols, observing, investigating and reporting their behaviour. The trip starts with a month's Spanish course in coastal Playa Flamingo or Mon teverde (in the cloud forest), to prepare you for between one and five months' conservation work at either Gandoca or Manzanillo beach. Cactus Languages offers a four-week language course followed by a four-week placement, including transfers, 20 lessons per week, eight weeks' full-board accommodation with a host family and social programme for £1,329.
French
Mature Francophiles
Bordeaux
A two-week course aimed at travellers aged over 50 combines 22 language lessons of 50 mins, a leisure programme visiting cultural sites and museums, and Bordeaux wine tasting. Euro Academy (020 8297 0505) offers the course for £450. Two weeks' half-board with a host family costs £320.
Quebecois
Montreal
Learn Quebecois French across the pond in the largest bilingual city on the planet; home to world-renowned jazz, film and comedy festivals. Cactus Languages offers a two-week general French course consisting of 20 lessons per week, social programmes and activities for £339. A fortnight's accommodation costs £330.
Gastronomy
Aix-en-Provence
Learn your à point from your bien cuit entrecôte, your brebis from your chèvre. Caledonia Languages Abroad (0131 621 7721/2) offers two weeks, with 40 50-minuteFrench lessons, visits to olive oil mills and vineyards, tutored wine-tastings, sampling of local produce and a practical cooking class with a local chef in the old capital of Provence, for £550. Two weeks' half-board accommodation with a host family in a single room costs £300.
Riviera affair
St Raphaël
With its abundance of sporting and cultural activities, the Riviera is a great place to practise your French in the morning and relax in the afternoon. This course includes a busy leisure programme - watersports, golfing, checking out art, eating barbecues - to fill time after lessons at the France Langue and Culture school in St Raphaël. Run by a French economics professor who spends the winter teaching in Stockholm, Language Holidays (00 46 8 350698) offers seven levels of tuition, from kids to language teachers, and from three to eight hours a day. Prices start at €490 (£300) for two weeks' morning tuition course fees, or €800 (£488) for a fortnight's tuition and half-board with a host family.
German
Teenage kicks
Aschaffenburg
This course is for 12- to 16-year-olds and, over two weeks, offers 30 lessons (50 mins each) across the mornings. Afternoon activities include sports, trips to museums and galleries, boat rides on the river, and two weeks' full-board with a host family. Euro Academy (020 8297 0505) offers this course for £498, and others like it.
Skiing plus city
Vienna
Combine the horse-drawn carriages, rich chocolate cake and Hapsburg elegance of Vienna with the slopes at Kitzbühel. Cactus Languages offers two weeks' German tuition in the Austrian capital; 25 lessons (50 mins) per week for £289 and a fortnight's B&B with a host family for £300. Then take a train ride into the Tyrolean mountains for skiing and snowboarding. Return rail ticket, transfers, seven nights' B&B three-star guest-house accommodation and six-day lift pass is £299.
Italian
Wine tasting
Tuscany
This course allows the budding Italian speaker to practise other skills in the cultural centre of Tuscany, and all within the family home. Practical cookery, wine tasting, art design and/or painting are all on offer. Cactus Languages offers stays with a family who will also be your tutors. You sit down on the first night with your hosts and agree your itinerary, then they give you formal tuition, show you the sights, and teach you your chosen skill, be it cooking, wine tasting, the history of art, or Florentine artistic techniques. One week's standard full-board, transfers, excursions and 20 formal lessons costs £719. A week's luxury accommodation with the same package is £799. Ideally, you should have some elementary Italian.
History of art
Chianti
Caledonia Languages Abroad (0131 621 7721) offers a two-week course offering 40 Italian lessons (50 minutes each) and 16 hour-long lessons in art history, in San Giovanni, Valdarno. This, plus 13 nights' half-board with host family accommodation, costs £681.
Russian
Culture vultures
St Petersburg
While brushing up your Russian, enjoy the world's grandest shrine to self-improvement, Catherine the Great's Hermitage, which she stuffed with the finest works of art available, and even the philosopher Diderot. Cactus Languages offers a week's course in the former capital of Russia, including 20 hours of tuition, excursions and activities, for £169. A week's half-board accommodation in a single room with a host family staying in the city's historic centre costs £180.
Greek
Myths
Mount Olympus
Piperis Language Centre (00 30 41 023 3874) offers one-, two- and three-week language courses by the sea in central Greece at the foot of Mount Olympus from May to September. Modern Greek, Ancient Greek history and Greek mythology are all on offer. You can stay in a hotel or a caravan. The courses include 15 hours a week Greek tutoring, traditional dances, evenings with Greek food and wine, musical events, optional excursions to the historical and archeological sites of central Greece, and accommodation, from $700-$900 (£480-£620) per week.
Portuguese
Cookery
Lisbon
Lisbon's architecture and cuisine combines elements from its Oriental, Brazilian and Moorish colonial past. Euro Academy offers a Portuguese cooking and language course. For £360 you get 15 language lessons of 50 minutes, a week's B&B stay with a host family, cultural leisure programme, one lunch with a teacher and eight cookery lessons with local chefs.
