Shopping in Spain

In Spain, the quality of shopping is diverse and depends on which area of the country you are present. If you plan to shop in the busy commercial centers of Barcelona, Madrid and Malaga, it won’t be so much of a different experience to shopping at your hometown with busy and large department stores offering all kinds of goods of all quality.

The shops in big cities are all so very used to the tourists and it is not very difficult shopping here as many of the shop-keepers know how to speak different languages such as French, English, German etc.. In case you decide to go for shopping in areas that are a bit off the beaten track then you will not find a lot of people speaking in your native language and there will also be a big variation in prices.

Shopping in various parts of Spain can be up pleasure if you have abundant time and you do not mind mixing the shopping with a bit of meandering in bars for drinks, coffee shops and tapas.

Market opening hours differ considerably between regions but shops generally open at around 10 AM in the morning and close for siesta at about 2 PM. The shops re-open at about 5 PM to remain so until 8 or 9 PM.

Hypermarkets and large departmental stores generally remain open all day long. Mostly all stores are closed on Sundays and fiesta days. Hypermarkets are quite popular in Spain and are generally present in most of the Metropolitans. Hypermarkets can usually be found on the outskirts and the biggest of them in Spain are Hipercor and Eroski.

Open-air markets in Spain start around 9 AM in the morning and ends at about 2 PM in the afternoon. You can find a variety of products including flowers, vegetables, shoes, clothes, pottery, linen, crafts, carpets, domestic goods and jewelry in these markets.

Credit cards are very widely accepted all over Spain but cheques are not. While taking out money from the bank make sure that you do not take out only €500 notes as it may not get accepted by a lot of shopkeepers. You can also claim back the IVA (VAT) that generally gets added to all your purchases except drink, food, medicines and motor vehicles.

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