Travelling in Europe with multiple allergies

[Mamazee3]

Hi, can anyone please help with suggestions of breaks in Europe that would be suitable for travelling with a child with multiple allergies. Ideally we are looking for a shortish flight, self catering and unfortunately not somewhere remote just in case of emergency. We will be really reassured to know that there is a main hospital with English-speaking doctors. Would really appreciate anyone's tips. Thanks in advance.

Malta works for us!

We also had a major, non related hospital visit in Italy where the doctors spoke English. Nurses etc didn't though. Ostia (beach outside of Rome).

What age is your child and what allergies?

We have peanuts, sesame allergies and gluten intolerances.

France and Switzerland are not great, we live on the French / Swiss border and rarely eat out but have found some catered chalets in the alps run by English companies who are pretty good..

Bruges was pretty good when we were passing through and a recent trip to Vienna was awesome, OMG the cakes!!

Most big cities will have English speaking doctors (much of medical research is published in English so its almost a necessity.) Places with large populations of international organisations (Geneva The Hague, Luxemburg, Vienna) will all have staff well used to dealing with English speakers and will have great hospitals.

Thank you so much for your input. My son is 8 and is anaphylactic to peanuts, tree nuts, egg, dairy, wheat, barley; rye, legumes, banana and all stone fruits. It would be just him and I travelling so would need to find self catering. Also wouldn't drive so ideally a city that's easily accessible. We managed to go to Copenhagen to see a friend last year for a couple of days. It was fine but obviously we had her for security. My son is also asthmatic and has severe asthma attacks hence why it's also important to be in easy reach of a main hospital. If anyone has any more input of specific recommendations , that would be really great. Want to be brave and find another little trip for us!

Mama, my son had a similarly long list when we left home last year (though I've done some food challenges on the road and he has majorly improved in the intervening year). We rent via airbnb so there is a full kitchen available.

When he was younger, I used to find that when I travelled, even if people 'spoke' a lot of English, I always had the fear that I would buy something prepackaged that had ingredients he couldn't have that weren't noticed by whoever was doing the translating (like the many ways of writing dairy - either I wouldn't recognise the word or my 'translator' for example wouldn't recognise that whey was dairy). I used to take along breakfast cereals and snacks. For other meals, meat protein and simple veg were always easy to get.

If you want to go 100% English, then Valletta in Malta is entirely walkable, Malta has good hospitals and they are a dual language country. Otherwise pp have made good suggestions too.

Ah, I was going to suggest Denmark. We unfortunately had to experience an anaphylaxis incident here (be careful the bread contains egg). They were absolutely marvellous and everyone spoke fantastic English.

We're staying near Lego land and I'm really impressed with the allergy info. It's displayed at every food stand.

Ambulance was here in less than 10 mins btw.

The Netherlands - everyone here speaks English well. Centerparcs, Duinrell, Landel parks all have self catering houses. There's an excellent Children's hospital in Utrecht called the WKZ but all medical services are good. Don't forget the EHIC card.

Oh blimey babybarrister your poor ds. How long does he need to stay in for?