Hi Storm. Nope. There are absolutely NO supermarkets in Spain. In fact, the farmers come into the city each day to sell their food and if you don't buy by the time they leave at around noon you'll have to go hungry until the next day. I'm pulling your leg. OF COURSE Spain has grocery stores! I think the first grocery stores did come about relatively recently though (maybe 25-30 years ago.

Other than the Spain-wide El Corte Inglés stores which combine food shopping with department store shopping in many cases, many LARGE all-in-one superstores like Alcampo & Continente have popped up outside of many major Spain cities including Madrid. I visited these two for the first time last year. It was sad, really. This huge tract of real estate had the fast-food places, multiplex cinemas, and specialty shops. It was SO ANTI-Spain in my mind. I felt like I was back in the USA.

[Continente and Pryca has merged together to become a new supermarket called "Carrefour".]

[Most supermarkets in Spain are French: Carrefour, Alcampo, Dia, Champion... The cheapest one in Spain is Dia. Although their products don't have very good quality, they also sell well known brands at very low prices]

But if you're in any city or town, including Salamanca, you'll most likely do your shopping either at the meat, vegetable/fruit, bread specialty shops or one of the many, small-ish grocery stores around that have just 4-5 ailes of food and beverages and 2-3 check-out lanes. Don't worry. You'll have NO problem finding food to buy. But as rgf asked, will you have some place to cook all this great, Spanish food??

Saludos, MadridMan

[This message has been edited by Antonio (edited 08-05-2000).]

[This message has been edited by MadridMan (edited 08-08-2000).]