This post concludes my experiences on my holiday in France
and Spain in June this year. If you haven’t read the first part, you should
read that first- entitled ‘surviving abroad without being glutened (part 1)’
On the sixth day of our holiday we visited Banyuls, a nearby
seaside town. I had a bit of a craving for tuna steak, so we headed to
‘restaurant de la plage’ which was one of many restaurants on the sea front. The thon (tuna) steak we
had was very tasty and mine came with green beans instead of rice and salad,
which was a bit random. The beans were excellent though- drowning in garlicky
olive oil. The tuna was plain but excellently cooked and slightly rare. In the
evening we ate in and had a salad.
The next day we went into the Pyrenees and stopped in Ceret
for lunch at hotel Pablo Picasso. This is the bridge in Ceret:
I had a cheese salad,
which involved lettuce and chunks of four different cheeses. When I showed
people my ‘gluten free passport’ I’d printed off some people tended to over react
and exclude other things I could have eaten. They usually excluded the dressing
from salads which made them fairly bland and disappointing. In the evening we
ate at La Dorade in Cerbere, we chose the 32 euro
menu because it contained the most stuff we wanted to eat, only to come to
realise that the most expensive menu also had the largest portion sizes. The
starter was seabass with an avocado and potato stack, which consisted of a two
sizable fillets of seabass, and a large stack of avocado and potato with a
buttery sauce. The starter was really delicious but hugely filling, it was at
least the size you would expect a normal main course to be. The main course was
scallops which were huge and there were eight of them, by this point I was
getting pretty full so my Dad ate most of my main course, and most of my Mums
too! For dessert there was not a lot I could eat, I’d been keen to try the
crème catalane, but she said this contained a small amount of flour. In the end
I got a bowl of strawberries with cream, which was very nice and not too
filling.
Before I
get on to the tedious return journey and it’s meals (or lack of them), allow me to take an important
digression to… ice cream. Ice cream is an important part of any summer holiday
and I was not prepared to for go its pleasure on account of my gluten
avoidance. At first I was weary of two things- cones and wafers. At most ice
cream shops in the UK they stick a wafer into your ice cream before giving this
to you and I had always assumed this was based on tradition from Italy/ France/ Spain. However, I found this not to be the case and
didn’t see any ice cream shops in France or Spain with wafers. Cones are
obviously to be avoided, and usually I would watch the process of scooping out
the ice cream to check that there were no crumbs dropping into the tubs before
committing to getting any. I basically adopted a policy of just eating it and
not asking, a policy I have also adopted with hot chocolate and milkshakes and
has not caused me any obvious problems so far. I would choose flavours that
don’t obviously have gluten in, avoiding ones like cookie and cream
flavours. I would ask for a tub and go for a scoop of chocolate and pistachio
as they are my favourites. Another option is to choose the ice cream flavours furthest from the server, which will have had cones above it less often and be less likely to be contaminated. Obviously not all people avoiding gluten would want to take
this risk, and would either try to ask or avoid this pleasure. Personally I
think as most ice cream is gluten free and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t
be, the risk is worth it.
We were supposed to be leaving France on 11th
June from carcassone but that was the day the French air traffic control
decided to strike. Our original
flight was cancelled and we managed to book a second flight for the same day
from Girona so set off in our hire car to Girona. On the way we stopped in the
beautiful town of Narbonne, here is a picture of the square in the cathedral:
We had lunch at a restaurant called L’Estagnol which had been recommended in our guide book. The waiter understood my needs
and I ordered a steak tartare, which is like a raw beef burger. It was really
tasty and I’d been hoping to get a chance to have one before leaving France. We
also stopped in the seaside town of Roses, in Spain here is the beach there:
We went to a slightly tacky and very cigar smoky tapas
restaurant for dinner, the options were very limited as many things were deep
fried and battered. I was only really able to eat bits of fish- sardines and
anchovies, and salads. I wasn’t allowed the chips and was told I could have the
chicken wings but when it came out it looked like it was battered so I didn’t
trust it. The food I was actually allowed to eat was alright, but didn’t fill
me up at all.
We headed
to the airport to find out second flight was cancelled. It was quite a late
flight so we had to book on a flight for the next morning, from Barcelona
airport. As the next flight was supposed to be early we didn’t eat breakfast in
the hotel. The airport was very sparse in terms of shops and there was only one
café, I had a salad with candied fruit and chicken for my breakfast, which was
alright but a bit odd. The café actually sold a gluten free chocolate donut
type thing which I ate later on, but it really was disgusting and I couldn’t
eat it! It was very dry and hard with this slightly chocolaty, sticky, sickly filling. The flight was delayed by 3 hours but I only found the rest of the
airport half an hour before we had to board! There were more restaurants
including a steak restaurant, which I really wanted to go to, but there was no
time left. I got a plate of meats and cheeses and had it with some left over
gluten free bread that I still had. It was ok but it was quite stale and it
still didn’t fill me up, I was still hungry. Once we were on the plane we were told it would be another three hours before we took off, very frustrating!
Overall, I managed my diet fairly well abroad despite very limited knowledge of the language. In future I would have a bit more 'contingency food' around in the car just in case I get caught out and hungry. It would have been particularly useful for the journey back.
