Backpacking Europe Veg and GF with Child

We just returned from a 10 day trip to Europe. We spent 5 days on a backpacking trial-run and had 100% success gluten free and vegetarian. We plan to do a month long trip in a few years when my daughter gets older. We carried only a backpack with change of clothes an all of our electronics (nintendo, iphone, ipods, and cameras). We did not have room for much food. I knew we would have good luck finding food so we just carried a few bars and packaged nuts.

We traveled to Amsterdam, Marken and Volendam in the Netherlands, Paris, Brussels, London and Windsor. We traveled by train, stayed at 1 star hotels. We had no problem finding food, actually it was easier than finding Gluten Free food at home!

We traveled by train from city to city, we took mostly Thalys and EuroStar trains and were able to pre-order gluten free meals on most of the trains. The train stations in Brussels and London had great gluten free options at the airport and train stations.

London Heathrow Airport - British Airlines International Connections (Terminal 5, After Security)
Wagamama
http://www.wagamama.com
http://wagamama.com/food/dietary/wheatandglutenintolerant
Has a gluten free menu with excellent stir fry, noodle soups, miso soup and rice dishes.
They have locations all over the world. They had an extensive special diets menu.
(We also ate at Wagamama in London, at the Windsor Central train station, and in Amsterdam)

Wagamama #38 Yasai Itame
Grilled bok choy, fried tofu, red and spring onions, red peppers portabello
mushrooms, and bean sprouts served with rice noodles in a coconut and
green chili soup, garnished with coriander, mint and a lime wedge.
Naturally GF and Veg!

London Heathrow Airport
EAT.
http://www.eat.co.uk - In Terminals 3 and 5
All salads and soups are marked if they are vegetarian and or gluten free.
They have locations all over the UK at airports and train stations as well.

YoSushi
http://www.yosushi.com/ in Terminal 3
They had a menu listing all allergens and what dishes were safe or could be modified.

Brussels Midi Train Station
EXKI
http://www.exki.be
Had salads and soups that were marked if they were vegetarian and gluten free. Also sold packaged rice cakes.

Paddington Station in London
Salade
http://salade.co.uk
Had salads, soya deserts, juice bar, salad bar everything was marked if it was gluten free and vegetarian.

YoSushi
http://www.yosushi.com/
They had a menu listing all allergens and what dishes were safe or could be modified.


Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
Amsterdam City
Amsterdam Central Train Station
Albert Heijn Grocery Stores
http://www.ah.nl
They had an extensive selection of packaged salads that were marked as gluten free. Our favorite find there was "KoKos Sticks" which were slices of fresh coconut and a mango puree to dip them in. They had great packaged salads. The store also sell gluten free bread in the bakery at some locations, the bread is in the back in the freezer.
Amsterdam Health food Stores

DeNatuurwinkel (several locations)
http://www.denatuurwinkel.com
A organic healthfood store near the Rembrandt House. A gold mine for gluten free breads, crackers, cakes, homeopathics, and organic foods.

Paris Health Food Stores
Naturalia - http://www.naturalia.fr/
Touch of Bio - http://www.happycow.net/europe/france/paris/
Both places sold organic packaged gluten free items by Valpiform and Schar. Naturalia has fresh GF bread that you could order daily.

LegoLand Windsor
http://www.legoland.co.uk/park/Food+and+Drink/vegetarians.htm
They had gluten free and vegetarian foods available at 2 of the main restaurants as well as charts available at the park showing which foods were safe for a variety of special diets. We were able to eat a traditional English breakfast here and it was naturally gluten free and vegetarian- scrambled eggs, baked beans, hash browns. In the Italian restaurant we had an awesome broccoli risotto. The "chips" were gluten free at all of the restaurants. ("chips" = french fries.)

(Wagamama is also at Windsor Central Station)

Paris & Amsterdam
Maoz Vegetarian
http://www.maozusa.com/
Sadly we cannot eat their falafel but we could can eat their hummus and many things on their salad bar. At several locations the fries were safe. We ate there in Amsterdam and Paris.

Disney World 2009

Just returned from a week at Disney World. This is the ultimate celiac kids vacation spot! I have to admit that I over planned this vacation for fear of being caught in a theme park all day and not having access to food. I just could not believe that there would be so many options.

Pre-Planning
We made our restaurant reservations a couple months in advance. this was tricky because I had to plan what park we would be at when. Having been there now and knowing that the parks are sooooooooo far apart I would have planned differently. I called the Disney Dining line ( (407) WDW-DINE) to get a list of the restaurants that we could eat at. They emailed me lists of fast foods in each park and menus from the restaurants.

Where We Ate
Rainforest Cafe @ AK
We have eaten at this chain all over the country and have always had very friendly reception. However, we did not get the usual friendly reception at Disney. The chef acted like we were a bother. Eventually we got a great meal, they had a fabulous vegetarian stir fry! We ate here three times, twice with reservations and once without.

Sci-Fi Dine In @ HWStudios
This was the most amazing meal we had the entire time. The chef was so friendly and accepted the challenge of making us a gluten free and vegetarian meal. We had an amazing pasta dish with sun dried tomatoes, white beans and capers. We also had a great polenta and pasta dish.

Akershus Royal Banquet Hall @ Epcot
Princess Character Breakfast
This was fun. Not sure it was worth what we paid just to eat Gluten Free vans waffles, fruit and potatoes. But it was fun and it got us in early to the park.

Hollywood & Vine @ HWStudios
Play & Dine Character Breakfast
Again, lots of fun, got us in to the park early but was a bit pricey for waffles and fruit.

Tutto Italia @ Epcot
This was the only bad meal we had. It was also the most expensive meal we had. The service was very slow. We ordered penne pomodoro and it had no taste at all. They did not have the GF bread that so many reviews touted.

Main Street Bakery @ Magic Kingdom
This was an amazing experience. I read in the guide that the reservation line sent us that you could reserve a to-go lunch box here. So I called ahead to do so and the manager took our order over the phone and sent us an email confirmation. When we arrived at the park we walked right up to the counter and gave our name and our meal was ready in minutes. My husband (non veg) had a GF Philly Cheesesteak and KT and I had Veggie sandwiches on GF rolls. Both meals came with fries and GF brownies.

Our Hotel
We did not stay at a Disney property because My husband's convention was at the Gaylord Palms. We emailed ahead to the hotel to tell them that we needed gluten free and vegetarian meals. We arrived at midnight and were able to get a wonderful gluten free pasta and garlic bread when we arrived, after a long day of travel. The chef even made us veggie sandwiches to take on the plane with us on the return trip home.

Resources
DizAbled
This website and book has great info for a variety of special issues including food allergies.
http://www.diz-abled.com/Disney-World-Restaurants-Menus.htm

Of Vegetarian Interest
A must see/do ride is the Living with the Land ride at Epcot. This is totally amazing! This is a boat ride through the Disney Greenhouse where you get to see new farming technologies that Disney is researching to make agriculture more efficient and environmentally friendly. Warning to Vegans the fish farming part might be a little disturbing. The vertical farming and creative greenhouse was fascinating. Not sure how I felt about the biotech stuff, but overall it was interesting.

This photo is not upside down, these watermelons are growing from the
rafters in the Land at Disney's Epcot!

Cairo, Egypt

Just returned from week in Cairo. Another gluten free success!

I did tons of research on vegetarian options but we did not use any of it because we had had a Guide assigned to us that took care of everything for us because of the business my husband was doing there.

Actually, I am not sure this post will be much help to anyone visiting there other than to know that it is possible to have a great trip and eat vegetarian and gluten free.

We stayed at the Marriott in Mirage City. This is one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in. There were several restaurants in the hotel and food was available around the clock. The chef fixed us whatever we wanted. There were not any gluten free breads available but we ate VERY well, maybe too well! Our favorite was the Italian Restaurant, believe it or not. They had great soups, salads and the best gnocchi I have ever had.

We carried gluten free crackers with us everywhere. This came in handy for KT at the long dinners.

We ate almost all of our meals in the hotel, only one was on a Nile boat KhulKhal and it was ordered for us by our guide and was a very nice rice and vegetable dish.


Places we visited:

• Pharaonic Village, A living history museum that recreates life in ancient Egypt. A great place to take children!
• Great Pyramids of Giza
• Cairo Tower
• Egyptian Museum
• Khan el-Khalili Market

Our only struggle on this trip was the airline connection through Paris CDG airport. We had a 5 hour layover between the US and Cairo. There was very little that was suitable to eat and we were starving. My advice is not to connect in Paris- London or Amsterdam have much better options for veg and gluten free foods.

Jamaica

This time I was teaching at a resort for 8 days and KT and my husband were the ones vacationing. We stayed at the FDR Runaway Bay. This was a great trip, the best part was the vacation nanny. Every family gets one at this all inclusive resort. Nanny arrives at breakfast and stays and plays with the kids all day long, she also cleans your room! Our nanny was so amazing! She decided to go gluten free for the week so that she did not accidentally expose KT.

I met with the chef when we arrived and he assured me that we would be well taken care of. this is an all inclusive resort and many of the meals are buffet style. The chef would come out at each meal and tell us what was safe to eat. At the sit down dinners he would prepare a meal specially for us. The food was always wonderful.

Do beware that the traditional jerk seasonings do have soy sauce in them so cross-contact on the grill is a potential issue. While we were there we discovered casava breads which are a traditional bread of the area made from the casava root (manioc aka tapioca). It was awesome. They made a "French Toast" out of it for us.

KT on kid's dress up night dressed as a waitress bringing us GF food!

We had lots of bean dishes, lots of curry, rice, fresh vegetables and fruit.

What we love about Jamaica is that you can drink the water and eat the produce.

Paris with a 5 Year Old

We were able to eat vegetarian and gluten free without any incidents. This trip came just 6 months after diagnosis of our 5 year old daughter.

We travel a lot. The first thing I do is look up the vegetarian restaurants in the country, if anyone is going to understand food issues it is going to be the vegetarians. Also, most vegetarian restaurants have English speaking staff.

Here are some lists of Vegetarian Restaurants and health food stores.
Be sure to do some research to make sure the establishments are still open and have not moved.

http://www.happycow.net/europe/france/paris/
http://nwfolk.com/vegparis.html

A good place to confirm the existence is in the "Pages Yellow" http://www.pagesjaunes.fr/trouverlesprofessionnels/index.do
This is an awesome version of mapquest where you get walking instructions and photos of the building when approached from all directions!

LANGUAGE
I do speak a little French and I spoke A LOT of French while we were there. I am now very good at explaining what we can not eat in French. If you do not speak French then here are some resources for you:

French Dining Cards:
http://www.celiactravel.com/gluten-free-cards/14-french.html
I just scratched out the words that referred to "meat"
Here are the same cards in English: http://www.celiactravel.com/gluten-free-cards/11-english.html

Vegetarian French Phrases:
http://www.ivu.org/phrases/westeuro.html

PLANNING
I plan all of our activities based on nearby veg restaurants or health food stores. That way we are not wondering around looking for food on an empty stomach.
The first thing I do when we get there is to find the nearest health food store and buy a stash of GF foods.

We carried, GF snack bars, GF bread and crackers with us everywhere. If you eat cheese then it is easy to eat on the run if you have your bread.

We always had GF bread with us- we even fed the pigeons GF bread.


BREAKFAST
Our hotel did provide breakfast. We brought our own GF croissants and used their butter, cheese and jelly and then drank their coffee and chocolate.

BREAD
Ask where the nearest "BIO" store is- This is the equivalent of a special-diet-store-slash-pharmacy. In these stores you can get brands like VALPIFORM, BIAGLUT & SCHAER.

Gluten Free Baguette

We found the VALPIFORM brand to be far superior to anything we have even had in the states. They had AMAZING baguettes, croissants, pain au chocotale and madeline cakes.

We actually brought back a small suitcase of baguettes and croissants and we dream about the Madelines- did not get back with any of them, as we ate them all while we were there.

Many stores place their special orders on Wednesdays, and they arrive on Sunday.

The Schaer breads were pretty good- much better than most shelf packaged GF breads here:
Schaer has a new line of Organic GF breads and pastas.

We did not really care for the Biaglut products, they were more similar to EnerG bread products.

PLACES WE SHOPPED AND ATE

RENDEZ-VOUS DE LA NATURE (store)
http://www.dietetiquemouffetard.com/
96, rue Mouffetard
75005 Paris
Tél: 01 43 36 59 34
This is where we did the majority of our shopping- they carry a great stock of GF foods and speak English.
There is a healthfood restaurant on the corner, near this shop. We had a good meal there.

LES 4 et UNE SAVEURS
72 rue Card Lemoine 75005
Close to Place de la Contrescarpe. Métro/subway station: Jussieu or Monge.
Tel: 01 43 26 88 80
Organic, Macrobiotic, Vegetarian & fish. No smoking.
Open Tues - Sun, noon - 3pm & 7.15 - 10.30pm (11pm in summer)
** We ate here 4 times, as it was VERY close to our hotel. The food was PREFECT! They were very knowledgeable about GF food and made meals especially for us.

AU GRAIN DE FOLIE
24, rue La Vieuville - Paris 75018 - M>Abesses
Amazing little place with about 3 tables. The food was AMAZIng the owner was very knowledgeable about GF food.
They do have limited hours- I think they open at 5:30 PM

THE STUDIO
41 Rue du Temple 75004
We were able to eat brunch here- however it is an overpriced spot. This is a place where ex-pats used to gather on weekends when I lived in Paris. I was able to get a GF veg meal. I think I had an omelet and a salad. This restaurant is set in a courtyard of a dance studio.

ELAN NATURE (store)
107 bis, av du Général Leclerc
75014 Paris Tél: 01 45 42 35 00
139, av de Verdun
92130 Issy les Moulineaux Tél: 01 41 08 06 17

NATURALIA
These store are everywhere! The last 2 digits of the zip code tell you what "AREA" something is located in.
http://www.naturalia.fr/

MAOZ FALAFEL
Rue Xavier Rivas (at metro: Saint-Michel towards Notre Dame, 2nd St to the right)
The french fries were GF when we were there- they may have changed things since...

We also at at a Lebanese and a couple Indian restaurants. I can't remember the names at the moment, but both types of foods are easily adapted by a willing chef.

Vegetarian and Gluten Free?

Just 6 months after KT's diagnosis we had a trip scheduled to Paris. I was VERY nervous and felt like we were traveling to the gluten capital of the world. One day it came to me that I was looking at it all wrong. I needed to approach it the same way I approached traveling as a vegetarian. Being vegetarian it always takes lots of planning before we travel anywhere. In the past I have taken suitcases of organic vegetarian foods with me to Mexico, Japan and Ireland. Whenever I had a trip planned, I would look up the local vegetarian restaurants and stores and made out a travel plan. I decided that traveling gluten-free should not be that much different from traveling vegetarian.

Some tips:

• I start with the vegetarian restaurants, thinking they would be most likely to be sensitive to our dietary needs and I am sure everything is vegetarian.
  

• I plan our sightseeing around the location of health food stores and vegetarian restaurants.

• The first visit in any city is to the nearest health food store to see what is available.

• I request "Gluten Free" meals on our flights. Opting for gluten free over vegetarian because the vegetarian meals usually contain lots of gluten- usually pasta, bread and cereals. I knew the GF meals would likely contain fish or chicken. So we take our chances that there will be enough extras on the tray to keep us entertained. Breakfasts are usually vegetarian and GF. Don't count on these meals because they are not always served.
  

• I pack lots of GF snacks in our checked baggage and carry on food for our travels.