After our week in Paris we took the train to Amiens to join our 3-day tour of the Western Front battlefields with an Aussie emphasis.

When we booked this tour in Australia we got the usual Coeliac disclaimer: “We have advised the ground operators of the tour of your need for gf food but we make no promises”.  As Coeliacs should we then proceed to book a tour with this type of disclaimer?  A moot point that I will return to in a future blog.

Anyway in this case the ground operator of the tour was a “local” guide, Pete Smith, who subcontracts to a number of tour companies.  The accommodation was organised by the Australian/local operators (Mat McLachlan Battlefields Tours) and the guide’s job was to take us around (in his car) and follow (more or less) the set itinerary.  The meals arrangements were basically breakfast provided by the hotel, lunch organised by the guide (at our expense) and dinner arrangements as we saw fit in local restaurants.

As I had done in Paris, I carried my own breakfast cereal which I took down each day and used with the milk etc from the hotel buffet breakfast.  Where possible I supplemented this with anything on the buffet that looked gf e.g. yoghurt or cheese.  No touching the croissants of course.

As per Deb’s blog, our guide was excellent but the one mistake I made was not asking him what his lunch plans were early each day so I could make appropriate preparations.  On day 1 we went to a café run by more expat Brits so I could speak to them easily and get a baked potato lunch with salad which was excellent value.  Day 2 and 3 include further stops at local pubs that Pete (and other guests) found good value in the French countryside (cheaper than Paris!)  However the food at these places were sandwich based so one day I skipped lunch (ate an “emergency” nut bar) and the other day got some gf Schar bread at a Belgium health food store which I used with the open sandwich (sans bread) that Pete ordered (he only spoke enough French to order food and beer he claimed).  This was the first time I had seen Schar (Europe’s “biggest” gf brand) and suspected that the French stores don’t stock too many non-French brands.

Dinner night 1 was in Amiens and my googling had only found one old restaurant recommendation.  Many of the restaurants are in the one part of town, along the waterfront and the one I had found on google with English reviews, Le Quai, looked as good as any as any other – so we went in.  Armed with my French translation card, I managed to order a gf meat and veg (or salad; I can’t remember now!) main course.

Night 2 in Iepers was meant to be more of the same but Iepers is in the Flemish part of Belgium.  My research said that Belgians spoke French, Dutch or German.  However this was not correct.  They actually spoke Flemish and I had no translation card for this language (we were only in Belgium for a day and I had not really researched this well!)  Fortunately the restaurant we picked, almost at random, had friendly staff who read both my French and my English card (which I happened to have in my wallet) and from there we negotiated another meat dish.  The chef even came out and told me in sign language not to share Deb’s meal, which I wasn’t planning to do of course. Thanks to the staff at Petrus Brasserie another success.

The last night we arrived back in Paris quite late and did not feel like going out for dinner.  So we brought a couple of bits at another small Paris supermarket and tried to get rid of our leftovers before the flight to Istanbul the following morning.  I had managed to get a restock of breakfast cereal from the health food shop in Iepers and I spent some time mixing and repacking this for the next part of our trip.

Next Turkey: a Coeliac’s nightmare (almost)!

Ian