Anyway, don't forget to duck into the Ed's chain also while in Paris; if only to pick up a 1.5 liter bottle of store-brand cola for €.47. Tastes better than US Cokes to me, if only because they use SUGAR instead of corn syrup.

If you want to be depressed, walk into a Danish supermarket. Truly awful. Netto or Fakta would be the worst. Super Best would likely be the best, but that ain't saying much. Aldi is pretty much c**p, too. Have never been in a Lidl.>>

obviously, TG, you've never been to Iceland! we never did find out where they bought fresh meat - all that we saw was either frozen or salted. the general standard of veg and fruit was dire too - we saw a local remonstrating with a staff-member in one place about the potates which were so whizzened you could barely use them. and the prices were horrific, though this was just before the crash - they may be better now.

it's a lovely place, but with a few honourable exceptions, the food was a bit grim.

ps - my fave of all time is the supermarket opposite the accademia in Florence. as well as great bread, cheese, salumi, they sell whole frozen octopus.

I'd love to know what the people who buy them do with them.

Both the Aldi and the Lidl in Le Bugue (Dordogne) are about the worst excuses for grocery stores I've ever seen. The Lidl doesn't even have shelves. Everything's in big open cartons except for along the walls and the small refrigerated section. The Aldi's no better. I keep going there to try to find bargains, but I can spend hours sifting through cartons and piles of junk before I find something. And they're both just dirty and depressing. The Leader Price is only marginally better. How come the ones you're going to sound decent?

This thread is beyond belief. I give up.

The best supermarket in the world is Morrisons in Chippenham because I get 10% off with a staff discount card due to my son working at the petrol station there.

StCirq, this sounds like some of their stores with really no frills and I'm kind of surprised that they're dirty. But basically yes, that's their business model and that's why they're called hard discounters.

They don't work by providing their customers with a shopping experience and presenting goods in an attractive way. Their game is to move goods as fast and cheap as possible. For example shelving bulk goods costs money, so they might just avoid it.

Their point is purely that at the end of the shopping you pay much less than in a regular grocery market. They don't achieve this by selling stuff which is of questionable quality, so they're an alternative if you want to save money.

I like visiting supermarkets. I also like visiting public libraries.

Be careful with the photos, though. I wasn't allowed to take photos at a Roman supermarket.

it's a lovely place, but with a few honourable exceptions, the food was a bit grim.

In Iceland, you are safest going for fish.
We had some superb fish there. The cakes and pastries were rather good too.
I rather like mutton too, which did seem to be fresh but the worst meal we ever had was some very tough beef.

>obviously, TG, you've never been to Iceland! we never did find out where they bought fresh meat - all that we saw was either frozen or salted. the general standard of veg and fruit was dire too

Iceland is a subarctic island 2000 km from next continent, where not much food can be produced except for fish. So of course they have to get everything delivered in frozen state.

It is not much better in Norway.

We always visit the supermarkets when we're overseas, it's fascinating and we find great stuff to take home. In a hypermarket in France we were in fits of laughter at the 3 aisles of cheese (my god, there's ANOTHER one), then the 3 aisles of wine, followed by the 3 aisles of bread and pastries. In America, we always buy the Zatarain Gumbo and Jambalaya mixes and are amazed at the drugs you can buy off the shelf.

In Nice one Christmas we shopped at the Monoprix. They had a fabulous seafood selection and great bread, cheese, meat, wine etc. This year we shopped in Waitrose in England and I could have wept at the poor selection. Grocery shopping in supermarkets in the UK is generally depressing, too many ready meals and low quality product. One notable exception was an amazing supermarket in Windermere called Booths which our B&B owners recommended we visit! It made us wish we had a Booths near where we lived.

Another supermarket where we thought the choice and quality was high was Merkur, in Austria. We bought picnic supplies there, they had a terrific range and everything looked so fresh.

Kay

<they sell whole frozen octopus.

I'd love to know what the people who buy them do with them>

In Detroit they throw them on the ice during Hockey (soccer on skates) games - a long long tradition

Carrefour Saran now has self-check out scanners - just 4 of them but i did not see this labor-saving technology used in any other supermarket i visited this time - they are of course ubiquitous in American supermarkets now. Perhaps the labor unions being stronger in Europe are a reason these labor-saving checkouts are not in wide use?

And yes staff roller blading around Carrefour stores has been routine now for at least a decade in this branch.

Our local Hoogvliet has several self checkout scanners. If something fails to scan you get it for free at the unmanned checkouts. The manned checkouts tend to be faster however.
A lot of Albert Heijns have them too. Some have them on the trolley so you scan your goods as you put them in the trolley rather than unpacking it all to scan at a checkout.

Here's a couple for all you supermarchée junkies: I remember being surprised on a day trip from UK to Dunquerque in 1993 that scanners were used at check-outs in the hypermarchée; the first time we had ever seen this being done.

In 2000 in Brittany we did a reasonably big shop, i.e. filled a trolley for a family of 5 camping at nearby Carantec, checked it all out & then noticed that the till slip receipt had cunningly grouped together all similar items; all the breads were together, all the tinned stuff together, etc. I'm one of those who checks till slips, but I've never seen this done before or since. Is it done anywhere else?

Of course as most Brits will know it's common for day trippers from UK to head for France just for shopping, especially alcohol. But rather humiliating when you've worked out exactly how to ask a shop assistant for something in your best French, only to be answered in perfect English.

And we saw staff roller-blading around the biggest Tesco I've ever seen, in Podgorze Krakow. Do they need to have accident insurance to allow this?

<they sell whole frozen octopus.

I'd love to know what the people who buy them do with them>

In Detroit they throw them on the ice during Hockey (soccer on skates) games - a long long tradition>.

yes but Pal, that doesn't explain what they do with them in Florence, where ice hockey doesn't happen very often, if ever.

When aldi first opened in UK, the checkout staff had to know the price of every item stocked, as scanners were not used, and they did not use price labels either. They were remarkably fast, and mistakes were few (so far as I know). But scanning was introduced some time ago.

Yes Bert, ditto for Ireland. Although they were very good, it made it difficult for customers to spot any mistakes.

I LOVE visiting supermarkets in Europe. It is an essential element of my travels.

Hi, and until now I thought it was just me! I love visiting grocery stores when I travel. The strangest I thought was France's Picard with everything froze and a vaguely hospital feel to it. Certainly cannot discount the quality and convenience of their product however.

Whole Foods and Dean and Deluca and such amaze me by what they get away with charging for their goods.

sometimes you HAVE to go to a supermarket.

we were staying in Krakov in a B&B with tea and coffee-making facilities, [and indeed tea and coffee] but no milk or sugar.

having no idea what milk or sugar were in Polish, we just had to wander round til we found them - which was fun.