By Tim Sullivan

My spouse, Charlotte and I had the great opportunity to attend the Servas international conference (SICOGA) in Dijon, France this October. We planned a little time before and after the conference to visit a few other countries. We started in Ireland and worked our way through Wales and England, into France, then down to Spain and we flew home out of Lisbon.

One of the fun things we love to do is taste all the special food dishes from each area we visit. We took photos and wrote stories to send to our families and friends. The real purpose of this article is not to talk about the food we experienced but to advocate for Servas travelers to take advantage of Day Hosts. We did stay with five or six overnight hosts but in many communities, we stayed in hotels. One of the great joys of Servas is getting to know local people who always lead us to experiences that we would never find if we stayed in hotels. Day hosts are a great opportunity to do just that. They love to show off their communities and they always seem to be really interesting people. 

In The Basque City of San Sebastian, we connected with two different families of day hosts. Our first evening Marijo showed us around her lovely city and of course shared a meal with us. It was great fun trying a bit of local Basque food and wine.

Late the next afternoon Anouk picked us up and took us to completely different parts of the city including several mysterious places that housed ‘Secret Gastronomical Societies’. These are private groups that come together on a regular basis to cook food and enjoy their friend’s company. That evening she and her spouse Juan invited us to the ‘Secret Gastronomic Society’ they belong to. Now, what's the chances we would have been invited to this gathering if we had not connected with Day Hosts? You can see from the attached photo that we had a great time getting to know this group of friends. They meet every week with 10 to 15 friends to eat together, usually small bites of their favorite foods. This night we had the opportunity to taste many Basque Country food favorites, wine and a local sparkling cider.