Self catering in France for two weeks

[Offtofranceforfirsttime]

In a gite. What shall we take with us (car) and what shall we buy there (supermarket 10 mins drive)

have never done this so appreciate any good list sharing/ any tips!

Have been warned wifi patchy, first on list is a ton of board games 😂

Following!
one thing I’ve learnt is lots of shops don’t open on a Sunday. Some supermarkets don’t open at all and if they do it’s only for the morning.

Have you prepared the things you need to have in your car in France, warning triangle, high vis etc…

Do you mean food? It's really limited what you can take. No meat or dairy products for example - even in tins. I always take teabags, a tea towel and a sharp knife. And a tupperware container. Whereabouts are you going?

Generally I’m preparing in much the same way as I would the U.K. self catering we usually go in.
however I usually have a bag of snacks with us but due to restrictions after Brexit you can’t take meat or dairy. You’d think that wouldn’t present much of a problem until you realise that would include anything with milk or butter in the ingredients.

We just usually take snacks and drinks for the journey and do a supermarket shop when we get there.

You won’t need food other than food for the journey. Just go to the supermarket when you get into France.

Carrefour is usually open to 1 or 2 on Sundays and longer hours the rest of the week.

I guess food and …. Anything else!

How many trips to supermarket would you normally do. There are 4 of us. Two adults, two young teens.

going to a village just outside of Toulouse.

Carrefour in Toulouse is shut on Sundays.

We usually do a shop on the way from Calais for general bits, then go again when we run out. Bread is always from the bakers and we get that fresh most days. The town near to where we camp has a greengrocers, so we tend to get veg and salad there.

I wouldn’t over think it though, just shop like you do at home. Are you going to have a car? You can get everything in French Supermarkets, Aldi even looks the same and there’s about 10 in Toulouse.

I take gold teabags, marmite, a favourite cereal and massive block of cheddar for the kids (sad I know!), nespresso pods.

you would be very unlucky if your travel sarnies or anything are confiscated although posters are right, technically you shouldn’t.

Small pepper grinder, teabags and a decent knife.

Def buy the roasted chickens in the afternoon they will sell them in a town. Amazing!! 😋😋
I'd take a good frying pan as often they are rubbish in holiday houses. And maybe a few cleaning bits to save buying whole bottles of stuff

Take any favourites with you, such as cereals, tea, or coffee. The rest you can get out there. We even brought shower gels etc when we were there, rather than having to pack them. I made the mistake of buying hand soap etc and then discovered the gite we stayed in was quite well equipped

We went to the supermarket as we needed to it, usually once a day. We got bread from a local boulangerie. We found there were lots of supermarkets dotted around, including lidls, carrefours, and U.

supermarkets closed on Sunday afternoons, so be warned about this. Some also shut around 7pm in the evening.

Most milk is uht - the fresh milk section is quite small.

Wine is cheap!

Contact less payment is up to 50euro. Above this, you need to put the card in the machine.

Most toll roads take card payment. As the French drive on the right, the machine is usually the passenger side.

Bon voyage - have a lovely holiday.

The mandatory kit for the car.
A toll tag
Tea bags

Oh, and your usual shopping bags for the supermarket.

Ask your gite owners/holiday Company what will be provided and if they provide a welcome pack?

Squash if you drink it is a must.
I like to take some seasoning mixes for meat and dried herbs. Those season and bake in the bag ones can be handy. Favorite breakfadt cereals and biscuits?

Tea bags
Cereal - French ones are very very sweet
Milk for the first evening/morning (smuggled in a flask)
Any seasonings which you might want to use but it would be annoying to have to buy a whole new one eg herbs and spices, salt and pepper
Tape to seal up said seasonings
Any obscure kitchen gadgets you might want eg oyster knife, crab crackers (we eat a lot of seafood in france 😋)
Calpol if kids - you can get similar in France but the dosing is worked out differently and can be a little tricky if you’re already frazzled with a sick kid.

If Wifi is patchy - download TV/films onto tablets - iplayer is not available in france but downloads made from it in the UK are fine.

Bikes!

If you have a washing machine take a few washing pods or tablets todoa few loads saves having to buy a full pack.

Assuming you are going to cook meals, take a few core ingredients like oil, salt, pepper, herbs/spices/flavour sachets/sauces type things, ketchup, cereal, tea and instant coffee if you drink it, sugar. Basically things you wouldn't use the whole of or are British specific. I also used to take noodles for the pesky teen who didn't like coming out for dinner, she would cook them herself. French supermarkets are good, prices vary by item (sometimes cheaper, sometimes more expensive) but overall just a bit higher than the U.K.

I found the best things were the different sausages there, really delicious with couscous. Then of course cheeses ... I did take crackers from the U.K. as white French bread makes me pretty stomach achy, I also found wholemeal sourdough in leclerc I think it was, game changer, delicious and first time i could enjoy bread in france for years.

If you take the n roads there's no tolls btw, you can set google to no tolls. We always take the n roads unless weather is terrible, prefer taking an extra hour for nicer experience but we go on 2 wheels not 4!

@Offtofranceforfirsttime

We've mostly escaped from the dark ages down here and most of the big supermarkets/hypermarkets around Toulouse are generally open Sunday AM, but limited hours.

If your "just outside Toulouse" is actually well rural then more caution is required.

Bring your favourite teabags. The French have massive tea selections, but they seemed to be mostly herbal.

I know everyone wants fresh baguettes but don't forget to buy sliced bread. We stayed rurally last summer and the nearest bakeries were shut for their Aug break, so we had a much longer drive to the supermarket for bread! We went through our baguettes like lightning, so when someone wanted toast in the morning it was another trip out...

@Offtofranceforfirsttime

PS..Fuel for car:

Try and buy at a supermarket - fuel on auto routes/peages can be expensive, the small independently owned garages in villages/small towns can have utterly horrific prices.

Ditto teabags!
Also maybe pasta and a sauce for the first night if you're exhausted from travel. Emergency chocolate bars, snacks and drinks in cat for journey. Wet wipes, ginger biscuits and anti Bac wipes for any car sickness.

We all love going to French supermarkets and boulangeries so are quite happy to go several times during our stay! 😃

I agree. Half the fun of shopping abroad is looking around the supermarkets, seeing how they differ. The tomatoes we had were amazing, and we saw some huge watermelons.

Just come back from 3 weeks SC.

Normal tea bags aside, you can pretty much buy in French supermarkets what you can in the UK, the only exception being Chocolate, fruit, veg & fish... they have sooooo much more than anything you get over here.

The french do amazing Syrups, nearest we'd have is Ribena, hoards of different flavours and they last ages as they are quite strong.

One thing we did notice more this year was a lot of smaller shops are closed on Mondays

You don't need a Tag and have never yet found a toll booth that doesn't take a card, they changed to contactless years ago .... there are lot more speed cameras about too.

Oh and take loo roll for the motorway Aires, the service stations are fine in that respect but some of the picnic/loo stop ones can be less luxurious! even if many are in beautiful surrounds.

We used our UK data for internet, most companies allow you to use whatever you ve got in the UK in the EU too for no extra charge.

I'm watching some nonsense on YouTube and they've mentioned a shop called Picard which looks like Iceland but on steroids. I'm going to give that a try this year as there is one near where we stay.
If you can be bothered, you can buy PAYG SIMs in the supermarkets. I believe Leclerc is doing around 200Gb for around €23 euros. And you could set that up as a hotspot? But best to check the coverage in your gite before you invest. I understand you need photo ID to get the SIM registered in store.
You are only allowed 4l wine each to take into France, post brexit. I mention it because you can get some great deals on wine on the ferry but be mindful of your quantities - we usually buy some on the way out to save lugging it back from the supermarket.