Joys Of Shopping In Spain

Spain provides all of the international brand names you could ever need. But why buy imported goods when Spain features its own specialties? Here are several examples. Spain can be a excellent location to buy leather items, particularly shoes. Crafts are famous too. These contain ceramic items for example tiles and vases with stunning designs, usually Moorish in origin. An extra local craft that's thriving once more is lace making.

If you're short on time and need to do all your shopping in one place, you'll find a branch of the El Corte Ingles department store in nearly each town. They sell everything from jewellery to designer clothes, food to to furniture, and so on.

Shopping In Barcelona

Barcelona has gone through sweeping changes in recent times and in addition the shopping scene has been transformed within the process. All of the massive names are here along with an array of local boutiques, antique shops, art galleries, and futuristic shopping centers.

Maremagnum is among the new shopping and leisure complexes that's proved really popular. Other than its comprehensive plaza, it also provides locate a dozen cinemas and many restaurants, pubs and discos.

The new boutiques and stores are great places to shop. But to savour the authentic shopping experience, be positive to get away from the haunts of the glitterati and visit the old city. Here you can dive in in Barcelona's oldest shop, Cereria Subira, which very first opened its doors in 1761. If candles are on your shopping list, you are in luck, for Cereria Subira is a candle shop. Even though you are not buying, the vast range of candles of all sizes and colours is well worth seeing. Then plunge into the streets around the Barri Gòtic. Here it is possible to shop shops selling everything from fish and herbs to bullfighter's capes.

Shops in Barcelona open around 8 am and they usually close a couple of hours after sunset.

Shopping In Madrid

As the nation's capital, Madrid not surprisingly provides the most efficient array of expensive shopping outlets in Spain. But these make up just a tiny proportion of the city's shopping charms. Madrid's 50000 stores also sell everything from paintings and ceramics to guitars and bullfighters' costumes.

If it is designer labels you're after head for the eastern district of Salamanca. Here you will encounter the logos of Prada, Armani, and Louis Vuitton, and all of the others. Much more interesting are the boutiques of trendy Spanish designers like Sybilla, Amaya Arzuaga, and Victorio & Lucchino.

When you tire of the brand name stores, the area around the Street Fuencarral is genuinely a pleasant one to go to. It's home to a bunch of trendy boutiques selling both men´s and women´s clothes. There's also an indoor marketplace hawking clothing, bags and jewellery. For shoes, go to the Street Augusto Figueroa. It's lined with mostrarios selling designer's shoe samples at half price or less.

Shopping in Spain would be incomplete without visiting one of the street markets. Sunday morning is the time for the El Rastro street market on the Calle de Ribera de Curtidores that is closed to traffic. You'll be able to get everything from squawking chickens to pirated DVDs to antiques and smutty post cards. But be mindful, pickpockets abound.