<p>Well we have returned with gluten-intolerant D from our European sojourn. First of all thanks to the posters who recommended renting an apartment in Italy instead of booking a hotel for a stay of more than a few days. We did that and were glad of it.</p>
<p>Although we had some trouble finding a decent variety of palatable gluten-free stuff in the supermarkets in Venice (rice cakes get old, fast), there was at least a designated gluten-free section even in small mom and pop food shops and health-food stores, and every restaurant we dined at knew what we were talking about even if they couldn’t offer much in the way of variety of dishes for D; still she was able to find something wherever we went. Some places even offered gluten-free pasta substitutions for some dishes and that pasta was indistinguishable in both taste and texture from the wheat-based stuff. Impressive. </p>
<p>After Venice we spent some time in the south Tyrol, Italy. The hotel we stayed at offered, remarkably, with no prompting from us a variety of snack-sized, pre-wrapped gluten-free cookies, muffins, breadsticks and cakes at the breakfast buffet. They did point out to D that the stuff she was putting on her tray was “gluten-free” and sort of reserved for people with that kind of problem. We assured them that we knew and that’s why she chose them. </p>
<p>We ended our vacation in the south of France where things were decidedly less friendly gluten-free-wise but possibly because it was a tourist zone rather than one where regular people lived. One restaurant knew exactly what we were talking about when we told them D’s problem and suggested suitable substitutions for some of the veggie sides, but not every place was on the ball; one restaurant on our last day served her up something that was supposed to be gluten-free but the resulting post-prandial disaster suggested otherwise. </p>
<p>So D survived, none the worse for wear. Thanks to all for your suggestions and advice!</p>