Shopping

Shops are generally open from Monday to Saturday, from 09:00 to 12:00 hours and from 14:00 to 19:00 hours. They do not close for lunch in large cities.

Supermarkets are often open until 20:00 hours (22:00 hours in large cities). 

Markets will tend to open in the mornings from quite early and close up at lunchtime with only a few stalls hanging on into the afternoon in tourist areas.

However if you arrive at your campsite on a Sunday watch out as only a few food and tourist shops will be open on Sundays. The main supermarkets are generally not so don't get caught out.

 Here are some useful "French Shopping Phrases and Words"

Shopping

The first phrase thing I would recommend when shopping is to say "Bonjour" when you go into a shop or when you are first being served at a market stall. Someone who had lived in France gave me this tip. You will generally find you then get better and more friendly service. Not always ! but usually.

Now some more specific phrases you may need when shopping.

Types of Shop

The bakery            La boulangerie            "la bool-onjeree"

The book shop        La librarie        "la leebraree"

The cake shop    La patisserie    "la pateeseree"

The fish shop    La poissonerie    "la pwa-saw-neree"

The supermarket    La supermarche    "la soo-per-marshy"

The Post Office    La Poste        La pawst

The tobacconist    Le Tabac    le tabac

the shops     les magasins [m]  
the travel agent    l' agence de voyages 

la banque the bank

At the checkout

The checkout    La Caisse    "la kess"

How much is it ?    C'est Combien     "se (pronounced as in se in sell) com-bee-an"

Listen carefully to the reply which will be in Euros.

So for example it may be :

1Euro 50 cents    Un Euro Cinquante   un oorow sank-ont

20 Euros        Vingt Euros        vant-oorows

87 Cents    Quatre vingt Cents   "cat-rivan son"

I have listed numbers one to 100 below but if you have trouble with numbers its still a good idea to look carefully at the total on the cash register and also to have worked out in advance, based on the Exchange rate, roughly what you might expect to pay.

Do you have a bag ?        Vouz avez un sac ?      "voozavay un sac?"    

The French supermarkets have some great re-usable large shopping bags which you pay a small amount for. A good holiday pastime is to see which supermarkets have the nicest ones each year !

The exit        la sortie        lah sorh-tee

At the market

The fruit and vegetables at the local markets in France can be very fresh, straight from the farm. Have a look at the signs on the following - you will see that peppers or poivrons (pronounced pwavron) are from the countryside (Pays) and cost 4 Euros 20 cents per kilo.

In the picture below from the same market stall you will see that celeri branchine, which is sticks of celery are selling at 2 Euros 20 cents each,  chou frise (kale or cabbage) are 1 Euro 50 cents each and chou fleur (cauliflower) is sold out already but cost 2 Euro 20 cents each. If you look carefully at the price labels you will see that these vegetables are not sold per kilo but are sold as "La pièce" which means "each".

I have found that a useful weight to ask for, when buying for example cherries etc is 500 grammes. So what you would ask for are "cinq cent grammes de cerises s'il vous plaît (sank son gram des cerises seel voo ple) (with ple being pronounced as in the "ple" of plectrum)

 

 

       

 

Disclaimer: The reviews published on the site are intended solely for the purpose of providing general information and comment and are purely our opinions. We cannot guarantee that descriptions on this site are accurate, up to date or free from error.

We have found that the campsites described are very good but we find that it is difficult to find a campsite which has 100% of what you are looking for.  Also one person may love a busy campsite with lots of activities while someone else may love a quiet campsite with a small swimming pool. Actually we tend to be the latter ! So what we have done is highlight the good points of the sites and maybe point out a few of what we have found as slightly negative points. However we strongly recommend that you make full use of as many internet sources as possible before deciding about your holiday, including other review sites and Google maps etc.