Learn How to Make Stained Glass in France - 1-5 Day Courses on Stained Glass

If you've got an arts and crafts bone in your body, a tour of Europe, admiring its cathedrals and castles is bound to make you wonder how to make stained glass. I remember learning that the secrets of how to make stained glass disappeared with the Medieval makers. But it isn't true. Traditional leaded stained glass makers are still at work, all over France, restoring stained glass windows and creating modern stained glass for homes, churches and institutions.

In the South of France, traditional stained glass artist Rose-May Prevost, will even teach you how to make stained glass panels during courses short enough to take on vacation. At the end, after you've learned how to make stained glass, you will have your own work of art to take home.

Mme Prevost's studio, Atelier d'Art du Vitrail, is in the small, Rhone-side town of Beaucaire. There, she gives a short "Discovery" Course and a longer "Initiation" course on the basic, traditional techniques of how to make stained glass. All materials are supplied and on completion, students are ready to learn more advanced stained glass making techniques.

Children as young as 12 can take the classes (if you are thinking of traveling with a grandchild) and no experience or advanced preparation is needed.

Learn How to Make Stained Glass

• Short Class -- Stained Glass Discovery Day One-day, 7-hour class, for up to 4 people, offered year round.

  Price 100 Euros per person

  What's included Instruction and materials. Class covers the history of stained glass and glass making as well as a practical lesson.

  What you make A small section of leaded stained glass that is yours to keep.

• Long Class -- Introduction to Traditional Leaded Stained Glass 21 hours over three days or five afternoons (Tuesday - Saturday).

  Price 357 Euros per person

  What's included Instruction and materials. Class covers the basic techniques of how to make stained glass panel and prepares participants for more advanced techniques

  What you make Three-panels of stained glass to take with you.

  The course can be booked through the Beaucaire Office of Tourism , Tel: 011 33 4 66 59 26 57 which can also provide English-language information and can make suggestions and reservations for hotel or bed and breakfast accommodation.

  Ferne Arfin is London-based, American travel writer and About.com's guide to United Kingdom for Visitors. She writes for the Sunday Telegraph and other national papers about France and the USA, and is the author of Adventure Guide to Provence and the Cote d'Azur.