If you book a hotel on your own in Europe, try to make sure breakfast is included. It is VERY expensive to eat breakfast in cities like London, Paris and Rome. A latte costs around 5 Euro which is currently around $6.50 USD, and these are not “GRANDE” sized cups – this is a small, regular cup of coffee.
On Europe tours and even our independent vacation packages, in most cases breakfast is included. The tour companies like Globus Tours, Insight tour vacations and Trafalgar Tours, all contract with the hotels for full American breakfast daily, but as it turns out, you are not always going to find typical items we are accustomed to as options.
You can count on salty meats being part of your breakfast…ham, bacon or sausage. There are usually scrambled eggs, but apparently most Europeans don’t really know how to cook eggs, so even in the best hotels they were quite runny. You’ll also find cheese, toast and croissants along with yogurt, granola and cereal.
Then you are sure to find unique items. If in Italy, count on seeing a selection of desserts for breakfast. In London you normally find baked beans and bangers (mashed potatoes.) In Spain you may see churros which are doughnut like long sticks that you dip in warm chocolate syrup. In Hungary, hotdogs with mustard; Sweden you may see tomatoes and cucumber or caviar for breakfast.
If you are adventurous you just might end up enjoying salad, tuna fish or hotdogs for breakfast.
