Sunday, 13 November 2022
Organic luxury
combined with responsible corporate culture: My favourite hotel is Bio Austria certified, family-driven, family-friendly Hotel & Villa Auersperg in the old town. Before covid-19 almost all items on their breakfast buffet were organic, but in 2022 it seems that this has decreased. It's still possible to have a fully certified organic breakfast though.
When it comes to the contents of the mini-bar and the complimentary selection of tea and herbal tea on the room I was delighted to discover that some sweet and savoury snacks still are organic (though not as many as about five years ago), the same applies to tea bags and refreshments. The organic shampoo and liquid soap are produced by a manufactury in town, the towels are washed with ecological detergents, and the complimentary good-night chocolate on the bed is organic and fairly traded.
The hotel also has a gastro bar cum cafe dubbed A* bar where you can have a hearty meal or cake, organic coffee and organic wines, teas and juices. Its small, yet carefully selected daily menu caters for vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores alike, with generous servings, until around 22:30 pm. With the relaxed atmosphere of a mundane hotel bar the place is also worth a visit when you're not staying at the hotel. Their assortment of spirits for a relaxed drink at the bar includes organic
Gin Bien, a gin made by Salzburg-based organic bee keepers, and the O gin and vodka, both of Austrian origin.
Speaking of bee-keeping: The hotel has its own bee cubes located in its pleasant garden.
The hotel which consists of two spacious adjacent houses (the "hotel" and the "villa") is driven in accordance with the Economy for the Common Good principles. What could have been a pleasant park in the backyard of the villa is unfortunately an embarassing parking lot for the guests' obese cars. Much more pleasant: Next to the Tesla charging stations you may fetch a bicycle for a city ride. Unlike the parking fee bicycle rental is however not included in the (by now honestly quite hefty) price for the night.
If you are inclined to spend a luxury night in the old town, but cannot afford Auersperg prices you may check out
Hotel Stein: The hotel with its view on the river Salzach provides organic body care products, but since
its beautiful (but independent) Rosencafe breakfast restaurant gave up in May 2022, I don't know whether you may expect a 100 percent organic start of the day.
Smaller purses should have a look at the budget self-check in hotel
The Keep just a few steps from the main train station. It has colourful eco-conscious basic rooms, family rooms and appartments with upcycled furniture at very affordable prices. Their vending machine offers organic snacks, bamboo toothbrushes and vegan condoms, there's a community kitchen and a focus on reducing waste.
In 2022 they had a partially organic vegan Italian pop-up restaurant on their premises, the Vegitalian, but this is moving to another location. The hotel's website still promises a daily open restaurant serving breakfast and lunch, and dinner Wednesday through Saturday. Since it is announcing X-Mas opening hours, they probably found a new operator, but I cannot say who/what it is and whether it is organic.
About ten minutes away from the city centre, in the neighbourhood of Maxglan, you will find another family-driven Bio Austria certified retreat, the Green Hotels member Hotel Zur Post. It consists of three houses which are less luxuriously designed, but clean and comfortable, and the Villa Ceconi a little down the road. All rooms and apartments are equipped with organic cotton towels, organic soap from the local manufacturer mentioned above and organic tea bags. The hotel uses carbon neutral heating and produces its own photovoltaic electricity. You will be served fully organic breakfast, including yummy cakes and home-made vegan and vegetarian spreads (try the pumpkin seed oil one!).
Unfortunately the hotel does not have a bar, and although it is listed as a bicyle-friendly bett-und-bike hotel there's no bike shelter for guests.
In the Eastern neighbourhood of Parsch you may try the Heffterhof, another Salzburg hotel emphasizing on local, predominantly organic supplies in their kitchen. It has a focus as a conference hotel and offers fully organic breakfast. Let me know about your experience when you stay there.
If you prefer to spend your nights in the quiet of a natural park, far from the city's noise and yet only 20 minutes by bus from Salzburg's main train station, Stadthotel St. Virgil in the neighbourhood of Aigen is the place to stay. The hotel is part of a modern, sustainably driven conference and educational complex and as such serves Bio Austria certified organic breakfast and lunch, preferably with seasonal Austrian ingredients. Its Parkcafe also offers breakfast and lunch to passers-by, a nice and comparatively cheap option if you're out for a walk in the surroundings of the Salzburg hills. Unfortunately there's no lunch on Sundays, and on little frequented days the cafe may be closed.
If you plan a visit to Hellbrunn castle or the adjacent zoo, the Kaiserhof Anif is nearby. Their organic breakfast restaurant is open to the public, after pre-order by 8 pm the day before. Children up to five years won't be charged.
And for the sake of completeness: The Motel One design hotel chain runs two houses in Salzburg (one centrally located near the main train station, one on the way south to Hellbrunn castle) and promises at least partially organic breakfast and fairly traded coffee. They are not an option when travelling as a family.
Not or no longer organic
I felt in love with Salzburg during a stay at Altstadthotel Wolf Dietrich which once upon a time was Salzburg's first organic hotel with a lovely organic restaurant. Unfortunately they turned into a conventional hotel almost ten years ago. You will likely find a few organic items on their breakfast buffet, but I haven't questioned them for the past eight years.
If you read my post on eating out in Salzburg you might be wondering whether the Hotel Stadtkrug in Linzergasse was offering (partially) organic breakfast. Unfortunately this is not so.
2022-11-13 19:00:00
[Salzburg, Hellbrunn, Anif, organic, hotel, accommodation, breakfast, lunch, dinner, bar]
Link
Sunday, 16 October 2022
Nowhere in Germany it is easier to adhere to an organic lifestyle than in its capital – provided you aim for appropriately inhabited neighbourhoods all you have to do is to keep your eyes open. Many of those neighbourhoods can be found in the administrative unit of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, and this blog will cover only the tip of the iceberg, i.e. the places I found during a two-days visit. The places covered in the first two sections are all located in Kreuzberg 61, the neighbourhood considered the bourgeouis part of Kreuzberg.
The German Museum of Technology near tube-station Möckernbrücke clearly is a place to spend hours in – but what if you start to feel hungry or the urge for a coffee? For the occasional tourist this wonderful museum seems to be located in the middle of nowhere, but don't dispair! Head East and follow Tempelhofer Ufer back to the tube station, and turn to the right after the second traffic-light. A few steps into Großbeerenstraße you will find an organic gem with roots back in former West-Berlin's green-alternative past. Today it's a friendly though a little worn-out grocery cum eatery dubbed Ökotussi ("eco-Sheila") run by a bunch of practical women. Stop by for a hearty vegetarian (usually vegan) lunch (the vegan lasagna we had was delicious and sufficient for two), a salad or snack or an Italian-style coffee drink.
Follow Zossener Straße from tube-stop Gneisenaustraße in Southern direction, and you'll end up in a neighbourhood that most eco-conscious people will consider the ultimate paradise: three organic (or predominantly organic) whole-sale supermarkets, four organic bakeries, four at minimum partially organic restaurants and eateries, and a number of other shops offering selected organic products, everything within a five minutes walk, all with liberal opening hours compared to the rest of Germany. The eateries of this neighbourhood dubbed Bergmannkiez try to outdo one another in advertising their vegan options – it seems a luxury to point out that vegan even here usually does not imply organic.
Restaurants and eateries
Promenading Bergmannstraße (which makes for the Southern border of Marheinekeplatz) to the West you will find Fratelli La Bionda, a decent Italian pizzeria using organic flour and tomatoes for their pizze. No place for lunch since the restaurant does not open before evening. If you take your seat around the tables on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, opposing a park with a children's playground you will kindly be asked to move inside around half past 9 pm. Since the eateries covered below all close between 8 and 9 pm (or even earlier during the weekend) this place is the only option for your evening out covered in this post.
This nicely restored mall is a Mekka for foodies. Opposite Friesenstraße you will find Piechas Bio-Buffet, a slow-food whole-organic grill. Although vegan and vegetarian dishes are offered, too, their focus is clearly on organic meat, from nose to tail. Arguably Berlin's best beef burgers are served here, and unlike other places they won't cook your meat to death when you forget to order rare. If you want to try Berliner Currywurst (curried sausage) and other German meat dishes at all – so here. Heavily frequented during lunch hours service can be a bit bumpy, and more frequent cleaning of the bar tables would often be nice. You can choose from an impressive range of organic softdrinks, or have beer or very decent cider made from apples organically grown in the wild of Berlin's surroundings. Mayonaise and ketchup for your fries have to be ordered separately.
If you walk around the booth you will find the counter of the organic butcher's shop where you can buy sausages, offal and all the cuts from free-range cattle and pigs kept well at small-scale organic farms in the vicinity and slaughtered respectfully.
Bakeries
Lunch and coffee drinks are also being served by organic bakery Beumer & Lutum, a few steps north on Zossener Straße. If you want your coffee on the go make sure to bring your own mug which entitles you to a small discount. While the two organic bakery boothes within the Marheineke mall – Mehlwurm in the centre of the market hall, and Biobackhaus in the North-Eastern part – are closed on Sundays and open at 8 am, Beumer & Lutum is catering for the early bird Monday through Saturday from 7 am. It also used to keep open on Sundays, but that's past: Due to staff shortness in 2022 the shop is open only on weekday mornings. It offers a small selection of organic food items to complete your breakfast table. The bakery boothes in the mall still have longer opening hours, but do not serve coffee or lunch. Mehlwurm is the first bakery I know of offering an open source bread (with beetroot and walnuts).
For the sweet tooth
Italian-style organic coffee drinks can also be had from the Tanne b ice-cream parlour on the crossing of Zossener and Bergmannstraße. They use organic milk for their all-natural ice-creams served in vegan cones, and offer vegan options, too. Children are served slightly smaller scoops for the price of 80 cents (instead of 1.20 euros for regular servings). In 2019 the ice-cream season has been announced to start 7th March.
Around the corner from Fratelli La Bionda you'll find cosy Cafe Conni Island where you can treat yourself with lovely home-made, partially organic cakes and a coffee drink made with organic milk. The place is run by an artist whom you can hire to paint your walls with art, and since she usually serves herself the opening hours are restricted to afternoons and the second half of the week.
Supermarkets
With a branch of the vegan supermarket chain Veganz on the first floor of Marheineke-Markthalle facing Marheinekeplatz, a branch of Berlin-based organic wholesale chain Bio-Company on Bergmannstraße/Friesenstraße crossing and an Alnatura branch on the East-side of the park, all with liberal opening hours compared to German standards it's hard to find an excuse for not buying organic. The Bio-Company bakery booth even opens for the early bird at 7:30 am.
While both, Alnatura an Bio-Company sell exclusively organically certified items you have to be careful at Veganz: The grocery products and most of the German and Austrian brands on display are organic (and can be found in almost any other organic supermarket), but they also offer a lot of imported vegan products, and a great deal of them are not organic. Unfortunately these are not clearly marked on the shelves, so you should be familiar with organic branding outside the continent. On the plus side this Veganz supermarket introduced self-service dispensers offering more than 80 different dry products waiting to be filled in the containers you brought with you.
Shopping
If you're on a shopping spree or in search for a gift, and the body care sections of the organic supermarkets seem too boring, there's an organic beauty shop dubbed Belladonna in Bergmannstraße. Light and inviting, with a great selection of all kinds of natural creams, body lotions, perfumes, hair care, make-up and much more, both for men and women, this is a must-go for everyone, not just beauty addicts.
Also need new clothes? One of the three Berlin-based shops of the Dresden-based organic fashion and interior design label Tranquillo is located right in the vicinity.
The Japanese go mad about Trippen shoes, and if you go for fairly and eco-consciously produced leather shoes of unusual design (some of the soles alone can be considered art) the Trippen factory outlet near tube stop Schlesisches Tor is definitely worth a visit. Unlike in their stylish flagship store within Hackesche Höfe you have to browse shoe boxes for your size, and all the pairs are remaining stock or have small defects like miscolourings. In return prices are well below usual market price. You will find children's, women's and men's shoes (even the ones better described as sculptures are astonishingly comfy), and the staff is very helpful.
Kreuzberg 36
One of the many organic groceries turned partially organic eateries and delis is Der Milchladen ("The milk shop") near tube stop Moritzplatz. In the heart of what is dubbed the wild and autonomous migrant Kreuzberg you can have a hearty lunch, sandwiches, coffee and (cheese) cake as well as breakfast, vegan, vegetarian and omnivore.
The place is situated a few steps from the flagship store of one of the oldest eco-conscious Berlin fashion labels, Luzifer in Oranienstraße. All their clothes are made of linen and hemp, and unlike other labels they don't have short-lived collections: If you wore out your favourite dress, shirt or pair of trousers, you will usually be able to buy a replacement. When my favourite dress (of which I had two copies) after ten years continous use had too many holes they happily made a new one of the good parts for a very competitive price. They offer both, a men's and a women's collection, and you will often be served a tisane or a cookie in their light and friendly showroom.
Shut down
The following places are closed for good:
2022-10-16 21:00:00
[Berlin, Kreuzberg, organic, vegan, Italian, pizza, coffee, ice-cream, supermarkets, fashion, bodycare, household, shoes, deli, grocery, eatery, zero_waste, bakeries, butcher, burgers, confectioners]
Link
Tuesday, 13 September 2022
On a long-distance bike tour like the one from Munich to Venice the challenge is not to know when you will arrive where. So upfront research on the net isn't an option unless you really have lots of time to spend on preparing the tour. So when we arrived in Bruneck at lunch time my backlist contained only one item, a small organic supermarket which not only was closed for the
traditional Italian lunch break, but had closed for good a few monthes ago, in June 2022.
Luckily we found a branch of the South-Tyrolean delicatessen
Pur Südtirol selling regional produce, a majority of certified organic quality. Everything is presented in style, there's an organic bakery till and one for cheese and (not organic) cold cuts. A few gravity bins allow customers to refill dry food (not organic as far as I could see); the fresh fruits and greens were all organic.
There's a nice self-serviced cafe corner offering a daily changing seasonal vegetarian main course. Since we wanted to have our bikes within eye-sight outdoor seating was the only option. Unfortunately all these tables were taken, so we decided to proceed our tour through the Puster valley and take with us rolls, which the friendly service staff filled with cheese and some greens while I was waiting.
Across the main street, Graben, a health-food shop, the
Reformhaus Egger can help to complete supplies.
More to try
Closed
2022-09-13 07:15:01
[The_Conscious_Traveller, Italy, Bruneck, Brunico, Pustertal, Puster_Valley, MuenchenVenezia, organic, biologico, supermarkets, grocery, cafe, eatery, lunch, deli, zero_waste]
Link
Monday, 12 September 2022
The nice little town of Sterzing is not only a train stop on the reliable European train route from Munich over the Alpes to the Veneto, operated by Austrian ÖBB; it's also a destination on the bike route München–Venezia. Unfortunately we arrived there on a Sunday when shops are closed. We did not find a place to have an organic lunch (locals, please help!), so this post is based on up-front research on the net, window shopping on destination and more research on the net afterwards.
On a weekday I would have loved to have a glass of milk at the milk shops of the local organic dairy Milchhof Sterzing. There's one
on the premises of the dairy and a second one in the new town of Sterzing, the Neustadt.
A few steps further down the pedestrian street there's a wonderfully looking delicatessen shop,
Gut&Gerne, offering a good deal organic products from the region. The shop is a venture of the family-run Hotel Lilie nearby and you can buy convenience food from the hotel kitchen and bakery.
The hotel itself does not advertise organic breakfast, but they have dairy products of the Milchhof Sterzing, and given the Gut&Gerne shop window you will likely find more organically or at least more sustainably produced agricultural products from the region. To which extend the hotel restaurant and cafe use organic products I cannot say.
2022-09-12 21:30:00
[The_Conscious_Traveller, Italy, Sterzing, Vipiteno, MuenchenVenezia, organic]
Link
Wednesday, 07 September 2022
Innsbruck was a Saturday-to-Sunday overnight stop on the München-Venezia bike route, so this guide is far from complete! The only thing I can say for sure is that finding a (partially) organic place open on Sundays isn't easy.
My first impulse for an organic Sunday morning coffee was Cafe Crema in Welsergasse, a few steps from Landhausplatz, but the place turned out to be closed on Sundays. They promise to use a good deal organic produce from Tyrolean farmers. The coffee is only fairly traded, not organic. You may expect home-made cakes and a small range of savoury snacks for lunch or breakfast.
With option number two I was luckier: Although the Moustache looked like a decent (American-style) bar for an evening out and quite closed from its street address in the morning it turned out that the proper entrance was from Domsplatz, with pleasant outdoor seating. On Sunday mornings they do not serve the usual falafel and hummus sandwiches, but offer a generous brunch buffet, including very palatable hummus, pancakes and cake. About 90 percent of the food, so the promise goes, should be organic.
Unfortunately I was too busy to try all the good stuff on the buffet that I completely forgot to scrutinise the bottles in the adjacent main room. But since the bar looked very well assorted I am sure the bartender will offer an organic gin or more if you ask.
More to try
I love food markets, and had I been in Innsbruck on a week- or Saturday I would have loved to have breakfast or lunch at the
Klein und fein cafe in the Markthalle. Their lunch menu sports a mixture of international classics and Austrian dishes, predominantly vegetarian and made with local, often organic ingredients. They also offer ice-cream made from organic milk. Unfortunately the place is going to close mid of September, 2022. Whether their home-base shop is open to the public I cannot say, but it's certainly not a public restaurant.
As the original plan was to eat out late on Saturday night, I had the sister restaurant to the Salzburg burger grill Ludwig on my list. On Sundays the place is closed.
Next time I'll come to Innsbruck I hope to visit Oscar kocht, the vegetarian restaurant of a chef with Mexican roots promising to cook with predominantly organic ingredients. In summer 2022 Oscar wasn't here, and the female duo of Sloe was serving vegetarian/vegan dinner in this location, though not on Sundays.
When I checked for bicycle-friendly hotels on the München-Venezia bike route I found a hotel that I already had on my shortlist of overnight options offering at least partially organic breakfast:
the Hotel Schwarzer Adler.
Unfortunately our budget wasn't prepared for the price tag they called for that night (more than 300 EUR for the double room), and so the place remains unreviewed here. (The night was spent in a hostel offering organic tea and plant-based drink – not enough to qualify for this post.)
2022-09-07 09:45:00
[The_Conscious_Traveller, Austria, Innsbruck, MuenchenVenezia, organic, lunch, dinner, restaurant, cafe, coffee, vegetarian, ice-cream]
Link