Author Topic: Sailing to the med  (Read 5188 times)

Clivert

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Sailing to the med
« on: October 10 2018, 16:22 »
I recently read about someone sailing around the coast of France and Spain and Portugal.
They were talking about finding Lidl or Aldi.
Forget it.
There is so much excellent food found in local markets and if you want to eat ashore there are some excellent little restaurants if you get away from the seafront.

Yngmar

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Re: Sailing to the med
« Reply #1 on: October 10 2018, 18:44 »
That might've been us!  ;D

Local markets are great for fresh fruit and veggies, bakeries for fresh bread, but for everything else we found Lidl to be by far the best price/quality balance for everything else. Milk, beer, wine, meat, grains, canned foods, and even the odd boat part. Once you get to touristier parts (e.g. the Algarve, and most of the western Med), there will always be a notorious tourist trap shop (often a "Spar") near the hotels that sells basic food stuff for outrageous prices (e.g. a 1L carton of milk for 2 EUR when it costs 0.59 EUR at Lidl). Discounters are often a taxi ride away, but usually worth it if you stock up in bulk every few weeks (Bavaria's dry bilge sections are great for this - we have one full of milk, one full of cans, one with beer, etc. - keeping these heavy items as low as possible).

Restaurants are not for everyone. We rarely visit them, less than once per month usually (depends on where we are). When we do, we try to find the ones the local folk go to, not the ones aimed at package holiday tourism.

Most of the time we cook on the boat. We both enjoy cooking and over the years got pretty good at it. The first mate likes to look up local recipes on YouTube, buy the ingredients and then cook them herself. This usually works out very well, and most of the time we eat better on board than you can in many restaurants, and for a fraction of the price. This matters to us, as we're budget cruisers! :kewl
(formerly) Sailing Songbird  ⛵️ Bavaria 40 Ocean (2001)

Clivert

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Re: Sailing to the med
« Reply #2 on: October 11 2018, 17:00 »
We came back from Gib three years ago and found the stopping off places great to explore.
Sitting in a little bar where every passing yachtie had made their mark on the walls and the ceiling, the little bar we were in on our own after the locals left, where the barman disappeared and returned 5 minutes later with a spider crab as a bar snack was part of the fun.
 When I mentioned restaurants, they were more like little local places in the old town areas or in tiny harbours away from the madding crowd.
 It was late March / early April so nowhere was busy and the only safe place to top up the fuel tank was a fish dock where the turnover in diesel meant it was pretty fresh.
Can't say the midnight to three watch was much fun as we got further north ( it was very,very cold ) but places like the Rias in north west Spain were and are fabulous.