Friday, 21 August 2020
The rough and picturesque sandstone hills of Saxon Switzerland did not only inspire painters and componists of romanticism, but have been valued for centuries by both, alpinists as well as walkers and ramblers. Located at the border to the Czech republic it takes an urban train ride from Dresden (or a bicycle tour along the Elberadweg cycle route) to get here, either for a wee day out in the countryside or for a vacation inside the
National park.
If you get off the S1 urban train in direction Schöna at the
stop Hirschmühle Schmilka, and take the ferry to the Northern shore of the Elbe river you'll reach the village of Schmilka which, to a large degree, has been developed into an organic resort during the past years. The ferry is operated on demand, so simply go down to the landing stage and wait until the coxswain will see and fetch you.
The nucleus of the organic village is Hotel Helvetia which you will find, turning West (i.e. to the left), after a five minutes walk along the river shore. Its organic cafe and restaurant dubbed Strandgut ("stranded goods") serves both, the high quality no-frills salad for passers-by on a bicycle or walking tour as well as fine seasonal food drawing from both, the kitchen traditions of the region and the mediterranean. Both, vegans, fish and meat lovers are catered for with care, and if you are in the mood for a dessert, try the "Kalter Hund" ("cold dog") pudding made from cookies and chocolate, a children's favourite in former East Germany (though back then made with inferior ingredients). Unfortunately the cafe does not own a real Italian coffee machine, so the quality of the Italian-style coffee drinks is not as good as one would expect for a hotel in this category. If you stay overnight the hotel bar will however be able to provide you with a fully organic nightcap. However, due to renewal of the kitchen and restaurant facilities bar and restaurant will be closed until somewhen in September, 2020.
Usually the hotel reception serves as check-in for all
eco-friendly overnight options in the village, among others
Villa Thusnelda next to the ferry stop with its luxury rooms, but until the refurbishment will be finished, the check-in is at the street corner just across the road.
The villa itself houses historical Café Richter with the air of a classical spa coffeehouse, offering dinner from 5 am while the Strandgut restaurant is closed.
A sign at the cafe will guide you to the
village's operating water mill, the Schmilk'sche Mühle further up the road in the direction of the forest, with its rustic mill restaurant, the Mühlenstube of Gasthof zur Mühle at the right hand side. Hearty local stews and soups (one vegetarian, one omnivore), pizza, bread and cake from the artisanal organic bakery opposite and tasty, heavy beer from the Braumanufaktur brewery which you cross on the way from the river are served here, either inside or in the beer garden. Depending on the weather and season you will have to order at the bar inside or from the outdoor food stall. Here you also can buy beer, bread and cakes to take home when the bakery next door is closed.
If you stay overnight in one of the rustic and lovingly restored rooms at the mill -- they have double rooms as well as family appartments -- you will have your breakfast at the Mühlenstube.
The bakery opens at dusk, and what hasn't been sold on closing time will be sold by the Mühlenstube. Due to covid-19 restrictions there's now an open air sales booth a few meters up the hill which also sells (conventional) whipped ice-cream when the weather is nice. Opening hours of the brewery are restricted to the guided tours on Wednesdays and Sundays. If you stay within the resort a small tour inside the mill and the brewery is included in the package.
Closed
- Cafe Strandgut, Schmilka 11, Bad Schandau, probably from mid of September, 2020 again daily from 12, closing time depends on weather and season
2020-08-21 10:00:00
[Dresden, Bad_Schandau, Schmilka, Saechsische_Schweiz, Saxon_Switzerland, organic, vegan, coffee, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, restaurant, pub, cafe, bakeries, breweries, hotel, accommodation, Elbe_cycle_route, Elberadweg, corona, covid]
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Sunday, 05 January 2020
No carbon and nuclear power, no GMO
-- the window front of the more than 20 years old budget hotel Solar Hôtel features Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace and makes very clear the convictions guests are expected to share or at minimum to tolerate. Located in the 14th district near metro station Denfert-Rochereau this welcoming, family-friendly place offers the luxury of
eco-certified cleansing agents and solar-powered illumination of its facades, but not necessarily of Paris elegance.
If you have a room on the upper floors you may even have a glimpse of the top of the Eiffel tower -- unfortunately the ugly Tour Montparnasse is in the way for a beautiful view.
The family rooms are marked for one to three persons, but can be easily used by a family of four as long as two children share a smaller double bed.
The hotel's interior emphasizes on longevity and recycling, not necessarily on natural materials (though the towels are made from organic cotton), with headboards and tables made of recycled wood which have been there since 1992, and still do not look shabby. On the other side you may be disappointed to find (re-used) plastic cups at the bathroom and blankets made from 100 percent polyester.
Visitors are encouraged to use the narrow, blue-painted spiral staircase instead of the lift to save electricity and asked to separate their waste into the bins in the entrance area.
You may also ask for bicycles.
The fully organic French-style breakfast consists of tea or coffee and delicious croissants and baguette with jams and butter. In addition you may help yourself with apple juice, yogurt and breakfast cereals.
There's a sister hotel (more precisely: an annex) dubbed Le Lionceau nearby where organic tea and coffee are promised to be available in the rooms.
Paris luxury
If you are on a romantic vacation or have the budget for ordinary Paris hotel prices there's a number of more luxurious places to spend the night and wake up to a sumptuous
organic breakfast. Although I verified the existance of the hotels below I haven't stayed there (yet) and am interested in your experience.
The first ones on my list are the two Green Hotels Paris certified with the European Ecolabel: Hôtel Gavarni and
Eiffel Trocadéro
in the 16th district which promise 100 percent organic and/or fairly traded breakfast.
Just off the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in the 17th district, boutique Hidden Hotel is painted inside with natural pigments, offers coconut-fibre mattresses, organic toiletries and filtered water, plus organic breakfast.
In the 4th district, near Place des Vosges Hôtel Turenne does not promise 100 percent organic breakfast, but some (perhaps most) of the
fresh items, pastries and cold cuts should be organic. It comes at additional 14 euros per person (7 euros when you book your room at the hotel's website) and at no extra cost for children below 12 years.
Breakfast on the room is being served without an extra charge.
And finally: As you righteously may expect from a carbon-neutral luxury hotel the Eden Lodge
in the 11th arrondissement is reported to offer fully organic breakfast,
although the hotel website only promises organic fairtrade coffee, tea and eggs. The place is located
near Bastille and the Père Lachaise graveyard.
2020-01-05 09:30:00
[Paris, organic, hotel, accommodation, breakfast, lunch, dinner, bar]
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Sunday, 23 June 2019
Whether you're after a noisy beach holiday at the Adriatic coast or want to escape the buzz of Venice but stay within the Venetian magic -- the former fisher town of Chioggia with the suburb of Sottomarina and its beach is definitely worth a visit. It's easy to reach by local train from Rovigo -- a travel back in time with noisy cars, some of them without air conditioning, where you open the windows in the vain hope that the hot summer wind will refresh you --, bicycle or bus no 11 from Lido SME. The latter travels on board of a ro-ro ferry at the south-end of the Lido di Venezia at Alberoni over to the isle of Pellestrina. At the ferry terminal next to the Pellestrina graveyard, Cimitero Pellestrina, the bus ends and you go on board of the waterbus ferry with the same name, to Chioggia.
If coming by bicycle from Venezia Santa Lucia train station take the ferry no. 17 from Tronchetto to Lido San Nicolo (from the train station you must carry your bike over the steps of the Ponte della Costituzione bridge), and simply follow the direction of the bus (the bicycle route over the islands is properly marked). You will also take the ro-ro ferry from Alberoni and later the waterbus from Pellestrina to Chioggia. For persons the ferries are covered by the ACTV day, two-days and three-days passes bought in Venice but you have to buy additional bicyles tickets at one EUR per bike and ferry ride.
Where to stay
Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any places to eat and stay with a throughout trustworthy eco-conscious mindset. The nearest you get for a sustainable overnight stay is Hotel Mediterraneo, directly located at Sottomarina's beach promenade, the Lungomare Adriatico. The hotel with its pleasant rooftop terrace carries the Legambiente ecolabel for sustainable tourism. However: The promised organic breakfast was predominantly conventional, with the notable exceptions of -- unfortunately prepackaged -- rice wafers and rusk (the latter was also available in a conventional variety), organic honey, and two types of (yummy) organic biscuits. Neither the tea bags, the bread nor the milk were organic, and the coffee from the automatic machine completely undrinkable for Italian standards. The hotel itself certainly fullfills higher eco demands than average, but they easily could do better introducing waste separation, re-usable toothbrush tumblers and natural body care on the rooms, and of course by raising the number of organic products notably.
Having said this, the hotel manager, Sonia, was cordial and helpful, the room clean and suitable for a family, with actual sea view, and sufficiently isolated against the noises of the beach party places -- off-season. The washing and cleaning detergents used on the room as well as on the bed linen and towels did not leave disturbing remainders of artificial perfumes. The a la carte menu on the hotel's restaurant, Saporoso, was done by a skilled chef which should better have had organic ingredients at hand, to enhance the taste to very good.
Where to eat
Sad to say but if you really want to eat organic you have to buy your own food for a pic-nic -- at least I wasn't able to spot at minimum predominantly organic eateries or restaurants. Let me know if you find one!
Your next best bet may be
Pizza Fantasy, a beach shack pizza restaurant next to the Astoria Village pleasure ground at the Lungomare. On occasions they seem to use organic wholemeal flour and olive oil for the dough, and this may point to a generally more conscious mindset. However I wasn't able to confirm the general use of organic ingredients.
For lunch you may also check out the sandwiches at Tentazioni Tipiche in the old town of Chioggia a few steps from the ACTV ferry stop, but again I cannot say how reliably they contain (or rather: not) organic produce.
Ice-cream
The tour through the ice-cream parlours near Sottomarina beach starts with a case of greenwashing: L'Arte del Gelato da Marco e Giulio
advertises to use organic milk, but take this with a grain of salt: The 10 liters milk boxes by Parmalat delivered to the place were without doubt not lavelled organic. The ice-cream and the frozen yogurt are nevertheless smooth and easily palatable, though too sweet for my taste. None of the toppings for the frozen yogurt were organic. They take 1.80 EUR for a generous small serving of ice-cream, and 2.50 EUR for a small frozen yogurt with two toppings. The queue during evening hours makes it easy to identify this place on Piazza Italia.
A few steps along the roundabout, and you'll find L'Oasi del Gelato. The ice-cream here still looks very conventional, but for 2019 the owners promised to start using organic products -- organic milk in general, but also (on occasions) organic strawberries. How far they've already embraced this path I cannot say, but: Keep on going!
The Grom chain of ice-cream parlours stopped promising organic ingredients in 2019 (except for the milk in the milk shakes), but for the records: Yes, there's a Grom branch at the Lungomare.
The best source of organic food I could find is just around the corner from the ice-cream parlours at the Piazza Italia roundabout: Nuovi Sapori da Laura e Elena is a small, Sunday-open convenience store offering organic milk (the very lattebusche milk promised by the L'Oasi gelateria), juices, cheese, cookies, jam, wine, a good selection of dry food, and more -- you'll have to check for organic labels and ask at the cheese-and-meat counter.
The traditional Italian Tentazioni Tipiche delicatessen at the northern end of Corso del Popolo
next to Palazzo delle Figure in the old town of Chioggia is another small
grocery offering a -- rather limited -- range of organic (dry) food.
For organic and fairly traded bodycare (though no sun cream), dry food, sweets, preserves, wine, soft drinks, fairly traded fashion accessoiries and gifts head to the southern end of the corso: The Altromercato Commercio equo e sociale also stocks (not always certified organic) products of territories freed from the mafia, under the Libera Terra ("freed land") label.
More organic body care, using hemp as an ingredient, and other (partially organic) hemp products can be found at Canapa for you in Sottomarina which I did not have time to visit.
Some organic products are also available from the Supercoffeeshop coffee bar in Sottomarina. The coffee probably isn't organic, and I cannot say anything about the milk since I could not make it there.
If you are adventurous try to find Le verdure di Marco e Camilla in the old town of Chioggia, supposedly a quite new full-blown organic grocery also selling
fresh organic fruits and veges. I did not have the time to find the place, so please let me know if you know where exactly it is located.
More to try
2019-06-23 08:00:01
[Chioggia, Sottomarina, biologico, organic, ice-cream, supermarkets, grocery, bicycle, hotel, accommodation, fair, gifts, shopping, bodycare, coffee, cafe, hemp]
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Friday, 11 August 2017
Whether you arrive in Stockholm by train or the airport train Arlanda Express -- your next business hotel serving (partially) organic breakfast is just
a stone's throw away: When you exit Stockholm Central station using the Arlanda Express exit you'll find a sign pointing you towards Nordic Light Hotel promising a predominantly organic breakfast buffet. It's included if you stay overnight, otherwise adults pay 195 SEK and children between 4 and 12 years 110 SEK.
Turning right at the airport train exit you will find yourself at the entrance of Hotel C immediately. Given the size and the ugliness of this unpersonal building the interior of the rooms is surprisingly pleasant and the staff helpful and of a natural friendliness that suggests a fair working place. In the bathroom you'll find Natrue certified natural bodycare – body lotion, shampoo, conditioner, face cleanser and cream, and liquid soap with the (less strict) Nordic Eco label. There's also a complimentary selection of organic coffee (and milk for the coffee) on the room.
The large (included) breakfast buffet is certified by KRAV but since there are several levels of certification the organic label in this case means more than 25 percent organic or 15 items only. This is disappointing especially since all the cold cuts, warm breakfast items, fruits and veges were conventional while I stayed here. Black tea, coffee, milk (cow, oat, and soy), yogurt (cow and soy), cranberries, a cerial, some seeds, crisp bread, orange and strawberry marmelade and honey sported an additional KRAV or Eko label, and the herring was MSC certified.
2017-08-11 10:00:06
[Stockholm, organic, hotel, accommodation, breakfast]
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Sunday, 09 October 2016
A backwater trip on a houseboat is an almost obligatory Kerala travel itinerary, and the beauty of the landscape well worth to explore. However, as a matter of fact the waterways in and around Lake Vembanad are quite crowded even off-season (I do not really want to know how jammed it must be during the main season). With nearly a 100 procent diesel-fuelled boats (Most locals react with a disbelieving "What else?" when questioned upon this topic), most of them poorly mocking the look of traditional kettuwallams, and many of them disposing their waste into the water, this grand experience of an eco-system almost seems a no-go for the eco-conscious traveller today.
There is however a niche market for backwater trips on traditionally built houseboats. It requires some effort to find these tour operators, and they play in the upmarket price category.
Diesel driven
A pioneer in sustainable tourism in South India the luxury class hotel and resort chain CGH operates Spice Coast Cruises, offering backwater tours on diesel-fuelled one or two-bedroom boats. Electricity comes from solar panels, and the crew is carefully trained to not at any costs throw waste into the water. (Their relieved looks when it turned out that all we were throwing over board was water -- emptying a glass of drinking water where some insects had been caught -- were speaking for themselves.) There's of course room for improvement: Unlike in the Brunton Boatyard hotel in Kochi where the chain is serving drinking water from a hotel-owned drinking water plant in reused glass bottles, the drinking water on the boat came from plastic bottles, and after the crew had prepared the rooms for the night the AC was running on full power. (Since both, the power switch and the AC control were working we were able to adjust temperature and fan ourselves.)
When I enquired in advance on whether the boats were punted or diesel driven the sales person's argument for the diesel was that this way the crew would be able to sleep during the night. Since the boat was anchoring at the entrance to Lake Vembanad during the night you may question this argument, but in general we got the impression that CGH treats their staff well.
As the Spice Coast Cruises vessels are comparatively small the boats are also cruising some smaller waterways. Compared to all the other vessels on the lake, most of them poorly disguised tourist ferries, our boats were the most elegant ones, displaying mastership in the craft of traditional kettuwallam building.
The tour is easy to book from abroad, but don't be mislead by the information of the starting point -- it is not starting in the town of Alleppey as you may read the announcement. Instead plan for an about 25 km long car or rikshaw drive up north to get to the jetty in Puthanangadi.
Punting boats
Punted houseboats are hard to find, and I have neither seen nor taken one. Here is what I found out -- I'd be happy if you'd give me an account on your experience with the following operators in case you make use of them: Houseboat tour operator Coco Houseboats in Alleppey operates manually driven house boats (among other vessels) which can be easily booked from abroad. I got a quote for "a Deluxe 2 bedroom
houseboat Alleppey to Alleppey round for 2+2 persons with tax and food
Rs.15,000/- after discount" off season.
Fort Cochin based tour operator Wilson Tours seems to specialize in eco-friendly tours and offers houseboat trips on punted kettuwallams equipped with bio-tank toilets and solar powered light and fan. If you do not order in advance you can step by their office in Princess Street.
Just opposite the street Elite Hotel also advertises "eco-friendly houseboat near Alleppey". Whether they co-operate with Stanley Wilson or someone else I do not know.
2016-10-09 08:00:04
[Kerala, Alleppey, Alappuzha, Kochi, Cochin, accommodation, houseboats, hotel]
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