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Specific dietary needs when travelling - Being a Vegan/Vegetarian in Europe
08-16-2018, 12:47 PM
Whats the deal with this thread? Everywhere is the same...
Yesterday only on short notice I knew that the lovely Polish chick who came to dinner at my place is vegetarian.
In 10 minutes I went to nearest grocery and bought 3 fresh tomatoes, 500g of spaghetti, olives, mushrooms, parsley, onions, garlic, two botlles of wine...et voilà, problem solved.
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Specific dietary needs when travelling - Being a Vegan/Vegetarian in Europe
08-16-2018, 03:12 PM
Native cuisine for all of the countries you listed is pretty meat-heavy, especially if you don't eat fish. France, as you mentioned, is one of the more difficult places to find vegetarian food in restaurants, most french restaurants maybe only have a salad. They really don't rate vegetarian food. Bigger cities in every country will be more likely to have italian restaurants where you can easily get vegetarian food where you're out. If you're cooking for yourself, further south/closer to the mediterranean is better as the growing season is longer and you're more likely to have fresh fruits and vegetables in the supermarket. And as you mentioned you'll be able to get rice, pasta, etc. in supermarkets in every country listed, they're all westernized enough. For vegetarian restaurants, northern european capitals will have the best options (berlin amsterdam stockholm copenhagen etc.) but it's not their traditional cuisine, they just have more trendy restaurants in general.
Italy is the best place to eat if you're vegetarian (or even if you're not) but you'll definitely be able to get by everywhere if you can cook. I wouldn't sweat it too much.
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Specific dietary needs when travelling - Being a Vegan/Vegetarian in Europe
08-16-2018, 03:15 PM
Someone mentioned Lisbon also - there's a trend of vegan all you can eat places there now. I think they're krishna or have some other religious reason for existing, and they're really cheap and good lunch options. Lisbon is worth visiting anyway, it's an incredible city.
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Specific dietary needs when travelling - Being a Vegan/Vegetarian in Europe
08-16-2018, 09:24 PM
Good points raised. The key is cooking for sure. However, for the traveller from the West, who aims to spend only a weekend in one or two second tier cities in Central Europe, cooking might actually take away his time which could have been better spent visiting sights or meeting up with people. In such a case, eating out in places like Kosice or Debrecen, you dont want to end up with a bowl of salad and confused looks in addition to the already present problems with the language when speaking to the staff.
I guess that's the demographic of people who might find this information useful.
On a side note, the food by the Hari Krishna movement is an interesting experience, the food is entirely prepared by volunteers. Its very cheap or free in most places with all you can eat and its quite a cultural experience. Not promoting any religion/movement here, its purely from a tourist perspective.
