Finding gluten free products has certainly improved but can be a great a challenge when traveling. I now always travel with some staples such as a box of gluten free cookies, bread and some cereal which gets me by on the plane (just in case the special meal request didn’t go through) and the first few days of my trip. I was staying in Elveria in Marbella and had no expectations of finding anything that is gluten free. I have been visiting this area for the last 12 years so know all the little shops and supermarkets. My first surprise was the German bakery that makes FRESHLY baked gluten free bread. That was a real treat!  My next surprise was that a large number of refrigerated food items were very boldly labeled SIN GLUTEN. Usually it requires a magnifying glass to decipher the ingredients and allergens but when this is in another language even more challenging. So what a relief it was to see those two bold words. The supermarket Mercadona and smaller grocery store OpenCor  had a decent variety of gluten free products such as pasta, cookies and crackers. El Corte Ingles also produce a range of gluten free products and they sell them in other shops. The real treat however was being able to find gluten free local goodies which to my surprise were also available so I stocked up on vanilla Madeleines and other baked goodies. So now that I know that Spain is GF friendly my only wish is the for the next time I go to Paris to have a GF pain au chocolat or almond croissant! And New York, really, as much as I love you, we still can’t get freshly baked GF bread!