To take a child with a dairy and egg allergy inter railing in Italy?

[MumDadBingoBlueyy]

We are looking into plans for next summer and DH has suggested inter railing with our DDs, they’re good travellers and will be 5 & 7 when we go. We’ve been trying to pull together a route and are looking at potentially starting in Rome, or cutting through Venice and Milan. Our main concern is our 5 year old has both an egg and dairy allergy (not anaphylactic, she will be quite poorly for a few days with an upset stomach).

Obviously we want to avoid this, and are very aware that lots of dairy and egg is used in Italian cooking. We’ve not been to Italy for a good few years, and so are wondering how it is for catering for allergies/if there are plenty of vegan options.

On a total other note- any interrailing routes (anywhere in Europe) would be appreciated for inspiration!

She'll be fine. I'm assuming she is not vegetarian so she can eat ham and so on. There are plenty of alternative choices - just say before ordering, "Mia figlia soffre dalle allergie dei prodotti di latte e uova." But in hospitality, the vast majority of people speak English.

My youngest DS has multiple food allergies, both IgE and non IgE mediated and we have travelled quite extensively in Europe. I don't recall Italy being any more problematic than anywhere else.
When he was first diagnosed we did tend to stick to countries where we had at least a rudimentary grasp of the language but got more confident as time went on. And in all honesty, unless you are somewhere off the beaten track it's unusual for their not to be English speaking staff in restaurants etc.
You can buy cards with common allergy related phrases in a number of languages or I think you can download for freefrom the Allergy UK or Anaphylaxis Campaign websites. Plus I would carry wipes to clean surfaces like tables and arm rests on trains, especially if you are going to eat food off the table later. And don't forget that people in other countries have allergies too so restaurants and shops will be used to it. I know I felt a bit like an alien the first couple of times we went abroad with DS but we got used to it fairly quickly. Enjoy your holiday - sounds great fun.

I'm my experience with my vegetarian sister Italians have very little awareness of what isn't vegetarian. We always have to check the cheese packet to see if it's veggie or not because of you ask they say "it's cheese!"

Hopefully they will be better with allergies.

Took my, at the time, 18 month old, to Italy, Spain, and France. This was about 2 years ago. He had (at the time) egg, milk, soy and almond allergies. Italy was by far the easiest of the 3 countries. We had an allergy card written in Italian and the staff were all amazing at checking. If they didn't have something specifically on the menu, in the vast majority of places they just made him something. He was a big eater at the time. Could put away a tonne of food and we had no issues.

He ate a lot of meat and fish, dried pasta, sourdough bread and an exorbitant amount of melon and prosciutto.

Getting oat milk etc was very easy, it was in most stores.