Food

We’ve already been in Europe for more than 2 weeks! We’ve been to 7 countries, and we still have more to go. The 7 countries we’ve been to are England, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy. They’ve all been very different in positive ways, and I’ve enjoyed our time in all of them. The main way they were different was the food. My favorite meals came in Germany, Austria, and Italy. 

Besides England, which we’re going back to, Germany is the country we spent the least amount of time in. Even though we only ate a few meals there, we found some really good food. The best meal was in Munich. We were only in Munich for less than 6 hours because it’s Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest is a huge festival in Munich that takes place from the middle of September to the end of October. More than 6 million people go to Munich for Oktoberfest, so we decided we wouldn’t stay there because of how crowded it would be. Instead we stopped there to visit my dad’s cousin and her husband who live just outside of Munich. They brought us to a beer garden in the middle of Englischer Garten. Beer gardens are self-serve restaurants. It’s kind of like a cafeteria, but the food is so much better. I decided I wanted to eat German food, so I had currywurst with fries and a giant pretzel. The currywurst was delicious. Before I came to Europe I never thought a curry sauce on fries or sausage would be good, but it’s amazing. The pretzel I got was massive. It was bigger than my head, and I ate almost the entire thing. There were some other foods that looked really good at the beer garden that I didn’t get. One thing I almost got was half a chicken. It’s pretty much a rotisserie chicken cut in half, so you get one wing, one leg, and everything else on that half of the chicken. Another thing that looked really good was a pretzel pizza. The pretzel pizza was a pizza made on pretzel dough. My sister got one, but she didn’t like it for some reason. In my opinion that meal made up for the little time we had in Germany.

I wasn’t expecting any great food from Austria, but I was surprised. We had 3 nights in Austria, 2 in Salzburg and 1 in Innsbruck, so we ate a bunch of meals there. Apparently wienerschnitzel is a big thing in Austria, so I tried it for lunch during our full day in Salzburg. We had just been in the big cliffside castle in Salzburg, so we were all pretty hungry. We took the funicular down from the castle which stopped right near this restaurant. We decided to eat there, and I ordered wienerschnitzel. Wienerschnitzel is a pork cutlet that’s very thin. I had never had it before, so I was excited to try it. When the waiter brought out the food, he handed me a plate with a giant wienerschnitzel on it. Even though it was really big I ate the whole thing because it was delicious. I wasn’t expecting to have a better wienerschnitzel, but I was wrong. The next day we got to Innsbruck just in time for lunch. We asked the front desk at the hotel where we were staying for a good restaurant nearby, and they recommended this place right down the road. The only thing that stood out to me on the menu was wienerschnitzel, so I had to order it again. I thought the first wienerschnitzel was good, but this one was even better. It came with cranberry sauce too, so I had to try dipping the wienerschnitzel in it, and it was better than I expected. The savory breading mixed really well with the sweet cranberries. Maybe the sauce was the reason I liked it better, but wienerschnitzel by itself is still really good.

When I think of Italy, one of the first things I think of is Italian food. We’ve only spent 3 nights in Italy so far, and I already have had 2 bowls of pasta and 2.5 pizzas. We got to Venice on Wednesday evening, and we didn’t make it to the hotel until after 8, so we were all pretty hungry. The lady at the hotel recommended a restaurant just down the road with a terrace that overlooked the beach. We went there and got 2 pizzas to share. One was a margherita and the other had prosciutto and mushrooms. I had half of the prosciutto and mushrooms one, and it was pretty good. The next day I got some pasta with meat sauce. It was really good, and it was the best bowl of pasta I’ve had in a while. After a long day of wandering around Venice in the burning sun we decided it was time to find a good dinner. I had a chicken pizza, which was underwhelming. The chicken was not seasoned, so it was pretty much just a normal pizza. I can't complain though because it was still an Italian pizza, and it was delicious. Venice is the only place we’ve stayed for 3 nights, so we had 2 full days. The next day I had another bowl of pasta for lunch. This time it was gnocchi with meat sauce. The meat sauce from the day before was much better, but this was still good. After another long day in Venice, there’s nothing better than another pizza for dinner. This time I had pizza with sausage on it. It was the best pizza I have had on the trip so far. It was kind of like someone cut up a hot dog and put it on pizza, and there isn’t much more you can ask for. We still have more than a month left in Italy, so I bet we’ll find some more amazing food, but this was a great start.

That’s just all the amazing meals I’ve had in 1 week! We’re still in Europe for more than 2 months, so I’m excited to see what other foods I get to try. It’ll be cool to see what types of food they have in Spain. I can’t wait to go eat croissants and baguettes in Paris. I almost forgot that we were going back to England too, so I’ll be able to have some good fish and chips. You can probably expect another blog about food in the future.