26 May 2017 / leggypeggy

Breakfast is tops on this trip

baking, bread, breakfast, dairy, eggs, fruit, seafood, vegetables

My first plate of food at breakfast—just getting started

Any thoughts of me losing weight on this trip—I often do when travelling overland—have been completely abandoned this time around. I mean how can I resist breakfast? Remember it’s the most important meal of the day! Right?.

Poor John and I are doing two self-drive car trips—eight days around Finland (after a side trip to Sweden) and 13 days in the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Breads and sweets

Spiced rhubarb (in the back on the left) is sensational

It’s a sort of package deal that includes the car, basic routes to follow, tips for sightseeing, hotel accommodation AND the breakfasts. Most of the hotels have been four-star or more (not our usual travelling style) and the breakfasts have been even better. Some days we’re verging on 10 stars, if that’s possible.

Frankly Eastern Europe and Scandinavia have breakfast honed to a fine art. None of this continental offering of a dried-out croissant, cold toast, hard butter and jam in a tiny plastic tub.

Oh no! Breakfast in these parts is serious business.

Most places have had buffets with eggs, bacon, sausages, meatballs, various kinds of potatoes, multiple kinds of cereal, a wide range of fruit and juices, stewed fruits, many kinds of cheese and lunch meats, olives and pickles, lots of raw vegetables such as cucumbers, seafood (even gravlax and smoked salmon), bread of all kinds, homemade jams and local honeys, and some sinful dessert-y things like chocolate-covered donuts, cinnamon biscuits or custard tarts.

Here are some of the unexpected high spots.

Frozen yoghurt dispenser (only at breakfast) and tins of donuts, biscuits and other treats. The plump little character on the tins is Moomin, who is famous in Finland. I think he’s been eating too much breakfast, just like me

Cumulus Hotel in Lappeenranta, Finland, serves frozen yoghurt, but only at breakfast!

Vihula Manor in Estonia offers herring doused in eight or so kinds of sauce, including blueberry. I like pickled in mustard sauce best.

Mezotne Palace in Latvia cooks up the most beautifully seasoned fried eggs I’ve ever had. Absolute perfection with salt, pepper and dill.

Plenty of cereals

Breakfast choices

Smoked salmon and herring with sauces

Stikliai Hotel in Vilnius, Lithuania, makes wonderful chocolate cake truffles rolled in more chocolate and nuts.

But those are just temptations. I could go on and on, but my mouth’s full and I probably need to burp.

And we still have eight days of breakfasts to go! Geez, I am enjoying this. Part of that is because rhubarb, grapefruit, olives, pickles, cheese and herring have been popular on almost every table. Burp!

By the way, I’ve read that the deluxe hotel we are staying in tonight has the best breakfast in all of Lithuania. I’ll give it my best shot tomorrow morning and try to report back.

Oh, and for the most part the coffee has been very good, although one day it was quite cool/cold.

P.S. So sorry that some of the photos are a bit fuzzy. I took most of them with my 6-year-old smart-ish phone. It may be headed for retirement, or I could give it to Poor John who has never, ever had a mobile phone of any kind. Also, some of the dishes I’ve bragged about didn’t make the photo choices. Just too out-of-focus.

P.P.S. It you’re a sucker for breakfast, check out one of my most successful page-32 recipes for a great start to the day—my breakfast bowl. I’ll be making it again when I get home and dreaming of breakfasts on the road. Burp!