A European Road Trip Round-Up — A Girl's Guide to Drinking Alone

*The start of the Grossglockner High Alpine Road in Austria*

Hi friends! I know I’ve been MIA since early June. That was around the time that my dog, Sherry, got diagnosed with cancer. She had to have surgery, chemo, radiation–the whole works (all I can say is: get pet insurance!!). The good news is she’s doing much better now, but between taking her to appointments and going to my job, I didn’t do a whole lot else. She’s also not a bar dog, if you know what I mean, so all we did was snuggle up on the couch, her curling like a little donut and me staring at her like the perfect angel she is. Hence no review since the summer.

My partner Tom and I had a big trip planned for the end of September, and thankfully, Sherry was well enough by that time that we could go without worries. Tom had been dreaming up this European road trip in his head for a while, and we were finally able to make it happen. We picked up a rental car in Zurich, and drove to Colmar in Alsace, France, then to Rothenberg ob de Tauber in Germany, down to Munich for Oktoberfest, through Austria to Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomites in Italy, south to Venice, then made our way west to Grindelwald in the Swiss alps, and finally back up to Zurich for our flight home. It RULED. It was very hard to come home, but I love my dog.

For two people whose lives are invested in cocktails and spirits (Tom is also a bartender), none of these regions are known for those things. We were in wine and beer (and cheese and cow) country. But we had plenty of amazing meals and delicious beverages along the way that I thought were worth telling you about, even if I didn’t drink alone at any point. (Don’t worry Mom, we never drank and drove.)

Here’s a quick rundown of the noteworthy places on our multi-country European tour. TLDR at the bottom of the post of all the spots I recommend, if you don’t feel like reading my love letter to this trip.

ZURICH

*this fab duo inviting us into Zeughauskeller*

We only had one night in Zurich, and it was raining, so we didn’t get much of an impression of the most populous city in Switzerland. Ironically the first spot we went for a drink and a snack was a Spanish tapas bar called Bodega Española, which apparently has been around since 1874. It was fine!

The coolest place we visited in Zurich was Cabaret Voltaire, the birthplace of the Dada art movement. It’s now a gallery, bar, and art space and although tiny, you can still feel the century-old avant-garde pulsing through the brutalist walls. Also Tom immediately identified the song playing as a cover of The Cure’s “A Forest” by a dark wave band called Clan of Xymox (I did not know this song, but Tom recalled it instantly over a month later!) and made friends with the bartender because of it.

We got a cocktail at Barchetta Bar at the Storchen, a boutique hotel looking over the Limmat river before grabbing a bite at Zeughauskeller where Tom got his first (of many) sausage of the trip.

COLMAR

Once we picked up the rental car at the Zurich airport, we drove to our first real destination: Colmar in Alsace, France. I don’t remember when I was first introduced to it, but I’ve loved Alsatian Riesling for a long time, and we added this stop to the itinerary exclusively because it’s my favorite wine region. That, and it looks like the town from Beauty & the Beast. On the way, we stopped at the Train Museum in Mulhouse, which has nothing to do with food or drink, but if you love trains, like a certain boyfriend of mine does, this is a must-see.

We were in Colmar for three days, and while we had shitty weather for most of the time, it’s maybe the most beautiful town I’ve ever seen. Google it, but pictures don’t do it justice. The pastel-colored half-timber houses are delightful, with wooden shutters perfectly askew and the most beautiful flowers blooming in the window beds. It’s in Eastern France, right on the border of Germany, and it really is a wonderful blend of French and German culture in every way. We stayed at La Maison des Têtes, and were given the balcony room overlooking the cobblestoned Rue de Têtes. Having a glass of Cremant accompanied by a piece of Ribeaupierre cheese on the balcony, I truly felt like Belle and never wanted to leave. (Not to give away the ending or anything, but Alsace is the place Tom and I would most like to visit again. It’s amazing. Fuck Paris, go to Colmar.)

In Colmar, we had two exceptional meals: one at JY’s, a two-Michelin star restaurant situated on the Champ de Mars park. It was a six-course tasting menu, with a vegetarian option, and it was exquisite. We didn’t do an official wine pairing, but the somm kindly poured us each a few different glasses to go with our menus, all Alsatian, all superb. But the highlight tipple was my digestif–an incredible ginger eau-de-vie unlike anything I’d ever tasted before. It was full of ginger flavor without any added sugar that a liqueur typically brings. Like when you want to drink ginger tea but still also want alcohol. It was so good that I spent the next day tracking down a bottle. (I found it: a 500ml bottle cost me €50. Worth it.) The other outrageous dinner was at Wistub de la Petite Venise, where Tom had a braised pork dish that he is still thinking about. (Pro tip: Alsatians only seem to have dinner between 7-9pm and dinner reservations are a must.)

*line up of wines and eau-de-vie at Reichenberg*

Driving the Alsatian wine route is a perfect way to spend a day, weaving in and out of so many adorable towns, each with their own unique character, separated by stretches of vineyard. We started up in Strasbourg, then worked our way down, stopping in Barr, Bergheim, Riquewihr, Kaysersberg, Ribeauvillé, and Eguisheim. In Bergheim, we did a wine tasting at Les Demoiselles de Reichenberg, where a lovely woman named Louise walked us through many different grape varietals. Alsace may be known for their sparkling Cremant along with Riesling and Gewürztraminer wines, but they also have Muscat (the perfect aperitif wine), Sylvaner, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Noir. All of these wines are defined by their strong aromatics and are so subtle yet beautifully complex in flavor. Being in Alsace made me want to dive deeper into wine and get my WSET certification, I loved it that much.

BAVARIA

Okay, I know I said this would be a “quick” round-up and we’re only on day 4 of a 13 day trip. But this is my blog, I can do what I want!!

We said au revoir to Colmar and drove to Rothenburg ob de Tauer, with stops in the Black Forest National Park for a short hike and Baden-Baden for a schvitz. (Shoutout to the Friedrichsbad Bathhouse and the young male attendant who “tucked us in” to the relaxation beds!) Rothenburg felt like the more German version of Colmar, which is an obvious statement, because we were in Germany—it was charming and quaint, but way more medieval. We stayed at Hotel Gotisches Haus, a beautiful Gothic-style boutique hotel, and our only real meal in Rothenburg was at Restaurant Alter Keller, where we had our first (of many) giant beers in Deutschland.

*the Plönlein in Rothenburg ob de Tauber*

The next day we drove down the Romantische Straße (hot take: not that romantic compared to France!) on our way into Munich. We stayed at the Eden Hotel Wolff, which I booked with credit card points. It wasn’t anything special and I would’ve been pissed if I had paid actual money. After a nap in the twin beds because that’s the only room they had available (lol), Tom dragged me on a pilgrimage to Trader Vic’s in the basement of the Bayerischer Hotel, which is the longest operating Trader Vic’s in the world, and the only one still in Europe. The cocktails were actually pretty good, and our bartender, a delightful man named Game, gave us a few gifts once he realized we were industry. We also had an awesome dinner at a Thai restaurant called Aimy, an excellent respite from the vast quantities of cheese and bread we’d consumed by this point, and would continue to consume hereafter.

*my one time drinking alone on this trip*

Our last day in Munich was all about Oktoberfest. Wow, what a ride! It really is the world’s largest county fair, with rowdy German beer halls to boot. We got there around 11am, and to my dismay, there were so many children. How dare we have to share our ferris wheel gondola with a bunch of screaming kids?! Turns out it was “family day,” so there were hoards of school children on field trips, and adults got discounts but only if they had kids (so rude and discriminatory, right??). We wanted to do all the rides and games before we really started drinking, but I’m not a huge rollercoaster fan, especially not the ones that go upside down. Tom decided to do the big scary loop-de-loop rollercoaster, so I said “bye, I’ll be in that beer tent right over there!” The five minutes that Tom was on the rollercoaster was really the only chance I had on this whole trip to drink alone. Fittingly enough, he was the only person on the ride, so we both had very brief solo experiences.

There’s really only one beer option at Oktoberfest, the Festbier, even though different breweries have their own tents. It’s a pale lager that is the platonic ideal of a regular-ass beer. Servers in Dirndls or Lederhosen walk around and basically are just like: “bier?” and if you say “ja,” you get a liter of Festbier for €15. (Most of the stalls and rides take credit cards, but the beer halls only take cash.) There’s plenty of food too, in the form of food stalls or beer hall menus, and I consumed so much pretzel I basically became one. There was a point I was carrying one around in my pocket that I called my “emotional support pretzel.” We had a blast, and by 6pm we were spent.

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO (by way of AUSTRIA)

*my snack shop pretzel on the high alpine road*

We purposely didn’t overdo it at Oktoberfest like most are wont to do because we had a big drive ahead of us the next morning. We quickly left Germany and entered Austria, where I would love to go back one day. It was absolutely gorgeous. The hills are, indeed, alive. The highlight of the drive through Austria was the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, a winding road through mountain pastures and snowy peaks. It was incredible, and I also managed to have a great pretzel at the snack shop. Who knew!

Our next stop was Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomites, home of the upcoming 2026 Olympics. The surrounding alps are just breathtaking, with the jagged limestone peaks piercing through the fluffy white clouds. As Tom’s birthday present, I splurged on a stay at the Rosapetra Spa Resort, a really special 5-star hotel that feels modern and cozy at the same time. We had a welcome spritz on the terrace overlooking the mountains, then dinner at Il Vizietto, where I basically continued my trip-mandated cheese-and-bread diet with a delicious bowl of cacio e pepe. We followed dinner with dessert and amari across the street at The Roof Cortina. Tom got his beloved Amaro Braulio, fittingly from the other side of the Italian Alps, and I got a pour of my trusty Amaro Montenegro, which was served over a big ice cube with an orange twist, a pleasant surprise!

The next day was my ideal kind of vacation day. We took a pretty challenging four-hour hike in the Dolomites to Lake Sorapis, a stunning body of water a shade of turquoise that could rival the Caribbean seas. After the hike, we treated ourselves to some spa time, then we had what was one of the best meals of the trip at the hotel restaurant, Vista. Besides the fact that they had a section of their menu called i prosciutti, or “the hams,” this dinner was full of stunners, from the simple warm vegetable salad that was anything but simple, to the outrageous lobster tagliolino, down to the tiramisu that actually made Tom stop talking and close his eyes in delight.

VENICE

The drive to Venice took longer than we initially planned, due to a lot of street closures, but to our delight, there was a complimentary bottle of prosecco waiting for us in our room at the Hotel Al Ponte dei Sospiri, which had yet another balcony overlooking yet another cobblestoned street! Man, I love Europe.

Since our journey took double the time it was supposed to, Tom and I decided to forgo a traditional dinner and just barhop and have various cicchetti–basically Venetian tapas. I don’t remember the names of the first two spots we went for a drink and a snack, but I do remember that we played Scrabble and had a spritz overlooking a canal at the first place, and had a glass of Lambrusco and a toast that the nearby pigeons were really eyeing at the second.

*scrabble and spritzes in Venice - who could ask for more?*

*object in this image is SMALLER than it appears*

Tom had made a reservation at Harry’s Bar, a nearly hundred-year-old watering hole known for inventing the Bellini. It was recommended by a few people, so we were surprised when we were ushered past the charming wooden bar upstairs to a stodgy dining room with white tablecloths, no music, and a menu with prices that made our heads spin. A little research would have told us that Harry’s is a Cipriani property, so maybe we could’ve anticipated the cost a bit better. What I never could have anticipated was that my €24 (read: $28) martini would be just cold gin, in a tumbler the size of a thimble, with zero garnish whatsoever. Tom’s €20 unbalanced daiquiri came with a sugar rim (are we at Applebee’s???) and the tuna tartare we shared was fine, but fine does not justify a €55 price point. This was, bar none, the worst experience we had on the trip. (If this was the worst part of the trip, and if you’ve read up to this point, you know that this was probably the best vacation I’ve ever taken.)

After leaving Harry’s in disgust, we felt we deserved a proper cocktail. A Google search pointed us in the direction of The Library Bar in the Nolinski hotel. Instantly this room had a better vibe, with wood-paneled shelves holding dozens and dozens of books, red velvet seating, a ceiling fresco, a piano! While the drinks were basically the same price as Harry’s, they were actually enjoyable and well-made, and it was clear that the bartenders knew their stuff when it came to cocktails. We also had a lovely conversation with three women who were in town for a girls’ weekend. When we said we were from New York, the first thing they said was: “oh you guys have an important mayoral election coming up, right?” To think that a couple of New Yorkers would be sitting in a bar in Venice chatting with ladies who live in Frankfurt (but who are originally from Greece and Croatia) about the future mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, is a mad lib you couldn’t make up.

GRINDELWALD

*Pfingstegg mountain viewpoint - if you can believe it, this trip was not sponsored by Arcteryx or bean boots*

It was ciao to Venice and onto our longest day of driving of the whole trip. (I guess it’s worth mentioning that Tom did all the driving. My biggest contribution was choosing the podcast or music we listened to and fawning at the many cows out the window. I saw a tweet recently that said “sad that cows don’t know their biggest fans are women in passenger seats cheering them on” and I’ve never felt more seen.) I found it really interesting that crossing into Switzerland was the only semblance of any kind of border control we encountered on the whole trip, and it was basically just a single lane with a few agents standing around. America would never.

The drive to Grindelwald, the village in the Alps where we were settling for our final leg, was long and rainy. We got into town at night, right in time to see the last of the cows from the cow parade pass by. (This post is already long enough so I can’t get into it here, but do yourself a favor and search “cow parade Switzerland.” You can thank me later.)

We stayed at Grindellodge, a new hotel that blends Swiss and Japanese aesthetics, so our first meal on this final leg was an omakase sushi dinner at the hotel restaurant, Umami–y’know, traditional Swiss food! The next day, we took a cable car up to Pfingstegg, where we did the toboggan run and the fly-line, and had a meal of basically just raclette at Cafe Gletscherschlucht before going to the Glacier Canyon. That night we had more cheese in the form of delectable fondue at Barrys Restaurant and then went to seemingly the only cocktail bar in Grindelwald, The Seven Spirits Bar at the Bergwelt Hotel. A shocking display of cocktail technique in this tiny town in the Swiss alps and we were into it! On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at local stalwart Avocado Bar for a beer.

*the birthday boy at Restaurant Crystal*

Our final day of vacation was Tom’s birthday! We took the train up to the Jungfraujoch, “the top of Europe,” which is above the snow line and probably the coldest place in Switzerland. We had lunch at Restaurant Crystal, and had (what else) fondue while looking out at the gorgeous glaciers. We also had caramel coffee spiked with schnapps for dessert, as well as a few bites of chocolate, of course.

There was an all-day festival in Grindelwald, and as we were walking to dinner, we stumbled upon a large outdoor party with locals partying under tents and enjoying live music. We had two fascinating hot cocktails that I’d never tasted before: holdrio, a traditional Swiss hot drink made with plum schnapps, rosehip tea and sugar; and fröschli, or “hot frog,” a carnival drink of peppermint tea and Trojka Green, a green Swiss vodka liqueur. Of course they have good hot cocktails in this country, but these were such a surprise. Both were wild and tasty and gave me a new conception of what a hot toddy can be.

I made a reservation for Tom’s birthday dinner at Glacier, one of the few fine-dining restaurants in Grindelwald, and it was a delicious veg-focused six-course tasting menu. Similar to the experience we had at JY’s in Colmar, our somm was super thoughtful with her suggestions, even without the official wine pairing. AND both restaurants seemed to have been run by a staff mainly of women! But my favorite part of this meal was the utter shock and glee on Tom’s face when our server wheeled over the dessert cart, complete with a giant sparkler that could rival any Fourth of July firework. A perfect send-off.

Thank you for reading! Hopefully this wasn’t the literary equivalent of being forced to sit through a slideshow of your coworker’s vacation to Tampa. But this truly was the trip of a lifetime, so if you’re inspired and want any more recommendations, or even our full itinerary, hit me up.

The TLDR of it all:

ZURICH

Cabaret Voltaire - gallery, bar and cultural space
Zeughauskeller - Swiss restaurant and beer hall

ALSACE

JY’s - fine-dining restaurant with two Michelin stars
Wistub de la Petite Venise - traditional Alsatian wistub (or bistro)
Les Demoiselles de Reichenberg - wine cellar/tasting room for Le Domaine du Reichenberg

MUNICH

Trader Vic’s - restaurant/bar chain for tropical cocktails in the Bayerischer Hotel
Aimy - creative Thai restaurant
Oktoberfest! - duh

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO

Il Vizietto - Italian restaurant in town
Ristorante Vista - fine-dining restaurant in the Rosapetra Hotel

VENICE

The Library Bar - cocktail bar and lounge in the Nolinski Hotel

GRINDELWALD

Barrys Restaurant - Alpine restaurant
The Seven Spirits Bar - cocktail bar in the Bergwelt Hotel
Restaurant Crystal - Swiss restaurant at the top of Jungfrau
Glacier - fine-dining restaurant in the Glacier Hotel