Spanish Steps - Fact file - High-street shops

While los supermercados, supermarkets, are a common sight in Spain today, smaller local family-run shops and markets are still the preferred place to buy fresh local produce.

Larger Spanish towns will have una calle mayor, high street, or a commercial area housing most specialist shops, though in general shops tend to be dotted throughout town. These will include una panadería, a bakery, selling el pan, bread, una pastelería, a cake shop, and una heladería, ice cream shop.

For usual cuts of meat, you can either head for una carnicería, a butcher's, or more specifically for una charcutería, a pork butcher's, where you can buy jamón, ham, cerdo, pork, and sausages like chorizo. Medical essentials and selected beauty products can be picked up at una farmacia, the chemist's, while un estanco, the tobacconist or newsagent, supplies cigarettes, tobacco and small stationery items.

All towns will also have un quiosco or kiosko, a newsstand, where you will find staples like periódicos, newspapers, las revistas, magazines, as well as tarjetas postales, postcards, sellos, stamps, and snacks and sweets. There will also be a local administración de lotería, lottery ticket office.

Other Spanish speaking countries also have their own particular shops. In Mexico for example, la tlapalería is a hardware store, while in Chile you go to el boliche for groceries.

If you prefer the one-stop approach to shopping, you can of course try los grandes almacenes, department stores. The most popular department store in Spain, with over 55 branches, is El Corte Inglés. The store started off as a small tailor's shop in Madrid in the 1920s, and has become Spain's largest chain store with shops in all the major cities.

Links

El Corte Inglés

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