One of the things we love about traveling to different countries is checking out what they have that is different from home. This is easily achieved with a trip through the local stores. We enjoy our food, so grocery stores were always first on our list. French grocery stores have a whole lot more in the dairy isle than the US, with many different flavors of yogurt, soft cheese, and puddings. There were some hard cheeses here but most were over in the delicatessen area along with all the cured meats, yum! Eggs and shelf-stable milk were not refrigerated. There were heaps of canned pate’s and terrines, but canned anchovies were elusive for the first few weeks until we found them in the refrigerated fish section.
We discovered canned cassoulet’s with duck and pork which were a really tasty quick meal. The cheese and cured meat area always had something that ended up in our basket.
Overall the things that we felt were well priced other than the food items and wine mentioned, were bathing suits, wet suits and snorkel gear. If dining out, the moules (mussels) and crepes were consistently good and cheap. Tools, appliances, and home goods were expensive and there was a somewhat limited inventory. You paid through the nose for any item of quality. It was still possible to buy cheaper things but we had no idea how long the stuff would last. Some things were just cool, like the baguette cutting board with crumb catcher, slate place mat’s, groovy espresso machines with tiny cups and glasses for serving (yes we got some of those!). We picked up a basic 2 cup espresso machine by Sense, not the 700 EU one Todd really wanted but couldn’t justify the expense for. Overall, Carrafour had the best selection and prices for the bulk of items we needed, with the exception of Duvet covers.
We’d had the rental car just over a week now and were needing to fill the tank. There was a busy gas station near the Carrafour so after our window shopping,we headed over to line up. When we pulled up at the pump (after checking what fuel the car took), Todd slid his credit card as usual but it didn’t seem to work. He tried 2 others and I tried 2 of mine, but nothing happened. We got back into the car and drove around to another lane which seemed to be a cash or credit line. We tried again to no avail, and then passed the cashier booth and stuck our hands in the air indicated we hadn’t gotten any gas (and we were hopelessly confused!). This was very perplexing. We tried again at a road side station on our way back to Canet, but it also refused our cards. Back in Canet we tried at another supermarket gas pump at the Casino store, no go. We googled cash pay gas stations and were led back out of Canet to Barcares a small coastal community 10 minutes away. We found the gas station, I took the lonely planet pocket French/English guide into the attached store, and tried to ask for help at the pump. The women manning the counter was unable to figure out what I was asking for. Meanwhile Todd was trying his credit cards again and they still didn’t work.
This was beyond frustrating and because of all the failed attempts to charge, Todd had gotten a lock on his card ( the one with no foreign transaction fee’s), which was the main one he used. Then as I was standing at the counter, another customer paused and asked in accented English if I needed assistance. What a lovely man! He came outside and had a look, finally figuring out that it was likely that the gas stations were only accepting French credit cards. The man was actually Tahitian and had moved to France about 5 years ago to run a restaurant, he just shook his head, raised his arms and said “Ahh France”. He had come across many things that just made no sense as well. Anyway, having discovered that indeed our credit cards would not work, he offered to have us follow him to a cash pay station a few minutes away. We thanked him profusely and set out in hot pursuit. All went well at this last stop and is was a huge relief to finally be able to fill the car up and also understand the issue with the credit cards not working.
After this experience we found a local cash pay station at the Intermarche supermarket which was actually the closest gas station to the boat yard, so we didn’t have to repeat the experience. Little difficulties like this take on mammoth proportions when you can’t speak the language, but invariably provide some comic relief and a good story at the end of the day…such are the delights of travel!