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----- Original Message -----


Hi all, 


Thank you so much, those of you who replied to my request posted May 30th re a trip to Spain & Portugal - no negative responses, lots of helpful suggestions to consider and follow thru on, so....yes, I'm going to take the trip. As far as the kosher part is concerned, well, I guess I'll be doing a lot of vegetarian, no shellfish. Plus, I'll bring lots of packaged gf snack stuff. For now, I've lots of getting ready to do - now, any suggestions of how to prepare my "elderly" (10 & 19) cats for my absence? 


All of you, this listserve, are the absolutely best! 


Cheers, 
Helen 


Here is a selection of what you wrote: 


Spain is pretty easy. Take this expression with you. Yo soy Celiaco. I have celiac. Get the Passport Spain book. It will generalize safe foods. There are organizations that can tell you where to shop in each city. Do a little googleing for each city that you will be in. If u drink coffee stick to expresso or Starbucks. A celiac waiter at my hotel said the coffee is not safe. I was fine with this system. 
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my previous experiences in Spain along with meals I took on my own tell me that Spain in particular knows gluten free very well and you should have no trouble 
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I have spent significant time in Spain GF. For starters I would definitely get a Dining Out Card. Just google it and the language. Many choices will come up. You can also go to gluten.net for them. I believe they are free there. I DO happen to speak Spanish, but wherever I asked most restaurants in Spain understood. Many had a relative with Celiac. If you want to buy food on your own in Spain, there are department stores (very large) called Corte Ingles. Most of them have a grocery store in the downstairs and most of the grocery stores have special diet sections. There are some really delicious items in the GF section: chocolate filled croissants, etc! YUM! If you are going with a tour group be sure to ask them how they handle food allergy issues with their participants. 
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I went to Madrid as a fairly newly diagnosed coeliac (this is the UK spelling, in case you had not seen it before) several years ago with my son. I had no problem with my diet, but I need only gluten-free. My Spanish was / is very rusty, having done 1 year at school (1959/60!), with my vocabulary very, very poor but I did not have any problems. 

I am sure you will take the translations of your requirements (not just GF but kosher as well) with you. You proably will also learn, if necessary, the translations of what you must avoid, and also how to pronounce the words, as some of them could give you some problems (e.g. the letter n with a tilde over it, ditto the letter a in Portuguese, or the double l). 
However, Many British tourists go to Spain / Portugal for holidays, business or pilgrimages, so basic (UK) English will be widely understood, even if not by everyone. Also, both Spain and Portugal are in the European Union, so food labelling requirements will be the same as here in the UK. This means that common allergens (e.g. wheat, barley, rye) will be stated on packaging if you buy food (hence the need to learn how they are spelt in the local language). You might also come across the crossed grain symbol (see attached or find it on www.coeliac.org.uk ), or some variation thereof, on some food packaging, to tell you it is GF. 
I hope this helps, and good luck. remember, you are young only once, and the opportunity may not come around again. One suggestion; if you are interested in art, and go to Madrid, you really should find time to visit the Prado, the Madrid Art Gallery. It has, inter alia, many paintings by world class Spanish and Dutch artists. 
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We were in Barcelona, and I did just fine with gluten free. Kosher is going to be another dimension. You may need to consider becoming something like a staunch vegetarian, particularly if you need to have kosher cheese. In Spain (don't know about Portugal) virtually all of the cheese is made with animal rennet. I haven't seen microbial rennet as an ingredient in Spanish cheese. 



Barcelona has a small Jewish community, Reform and Orthodox. I suggest you write to the synagogues and pose the question to them. Ditto for the celiac organization. Celiacos de Catalunya is the organisation for Catalan-speaking Spain. Atid is the reform organization in Barcelona. You may want to repeat this drill for the Orthodox shuls in communities you want to visit, and you may want to write to the Spanish-speaking celiac organization if you are visiting places like Madrid. Spain is a pretty porky place, and although I don't keep kosher, I don't eat pork. So steering around that took some attention. Mostly, I at chicken (beef was prohibitively expensive). We rented a flat and cooked 75% of our own meals. 
Barcelona had a large amount of GF foods. Restaurants were aware, and it was easy to find baked things at a couple of health food stores, a pharmacy near our flat (but most pharmacies didn't have GF food) and at a major department store. 
I did carry a pocket card for restaurants and would be happy to share it with you. 
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We just returned last week from a trip to Spain and Portugal. It was amazing. I have never met such wonderful people as those we met in Portugal. We can't wait to return. I had absolutely no problems with gluten free. We do not keep kosher, so I cannot answer to that portion for you. There is alot of pork served. We were two couples traveling together, and one does not eat pork or drink wine, does not keep kosher, but she had no problems with eating. The hotels we stayed in all offered breakfast included, which is customery in both countries. There were plenty of cheeses, yogurts, fresh fruits, some had hot buffets and some did not, but I had plenty to eat. My travel agent did contact each hotel to advise them of my needing to have gluten free for the breakfast. When we checked in, I just mentioned that I was to have gluten free for breakfast, and at every place but one, I was served a basket of fresh gluten free breads or biscuits without any problems. I do always carry with me plenty of GF protein or granola bars for snaking during the day while we are out touring. I also had a box of GF pretzels to have with salads or whatever for lunches while out. I carried copies of the Gluten Free Restaurant cards with me in both Spanish and Portugese to show our servers for dinner. I have to say, that every single night there was not an issue - I would ask if what I wanted on the menu would be ok, and the server would take the card to the kitchen to verify if that dish was ok, and would come back with suggestions for me to adjust if it was necessary. In both countries, we didn't have a problem too much with language in the tourist areas. It is helpful if you pick up just a few words so that you know generally what you are looking at such as chicken, fish, meat, etc. If you ask, many places had menus in multiple languages available. 

We were in Madrid, Salamanca, and Bilbao in Spain - then in Portugal we were in Belmonte, Porto, Coimbra, Sagres, and Lisbon. Two years ago we visited Barcelona, Granada, Cordoba, and Seville. 

Both are beautiful countries with beautiful people and beautiful places to visit. Have an amazing trip. 
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