Germany Travel Tips
Supermarkets – If you shop for groceries in Germany you will notice the supermarkets have all of their large rolling carts outside in a designated area and they are locked to one another. In order to utilize a cart you must place one EUR in the cart itself, you will see the slot on the handle. Upon leaving the supermarket you latch the cart back to the other carts and pull the device out where you placed the coin, now you can retrieve your coin. When you have all of the groceries you want, proceed to the check-out counter. You will have to purchase plastic bags to put the groceries in or you can take one in yourself. If you decide to purchase one they are usually visible at the counter and normally only cost a few cents. If there is a long line do not put all of your groceries in the bag, put them back into the cart and bag them away from the line.
Closing hours – On Sunday everything is closed except for some restaurants, bars, gas stations and shops at the main train station and bigger airports. Some bigger stores are realizing that they can make much more money if they open on Sunday so they are doing just that, but I would not rely on it. During the week shops in bigger cities close at 8 PM at the latest. You may see shops in smaller cities closing even earlier.
Public Phones – Public phones are very rare in Germany. If you find one you will notice that they only take telephone cards. You can buy a telephone card in different shops like “T-Punkt”, “Telekom”, “Post”, and “Vodafone” or you can go to an Internet cafe.
Miscellaneous – “Bad” in front of a towns name does not mean that the people or the city is bad for example, “Bad Homburg”. Bad in front of a towns name normally means that the town is designated as a healthy location normally with very clean air and water.
By: Josh Spaulding
About the Author:
Useful information, thanks – a lot of laughter “bad”.
Germany is definitely my next travel destination. I have relatives in Austria and Switzerland but love to visit Germany while I am close.
When it comes to supermarkets, I had a bit of a culture shock when I first moved to Canada.
We found it weird, we later learned that
The first one we went to was a budget one, but we thought that was how it works in all stores.
The first thing we had to do is get a cart. A lady walked by she had a cart that she was about to return, we took it from her but she demanded 25 cents
you had to put 25 cents to unlock them like you explain.
Then it was the plastic bags that you had to pay for at the end…. we thought Canada was a cheap country lol
Now I am used to it, and I think I tall makes sense
In fact grocery stores are now mandated to charge for plastic bags in an effort to reduce waste.
A great refreshment about the policies of restaurants in the states. It is informative post in terms of doing pre-check. Thanks.
Great info! Most of these tips are valid in most European countries, by the way. As for the free tap water (with wine or coffe, for instance): specifically asking for it helps. In the South of Europe this is common, and because of frequent vacation travel, Northerners are also getting used to it, and demand it as a service. You’ll get it in the end in most cases.
Already trip to Germany, there are many beautiful places, I am Brazilian and I recommend!
My mom went to Germany and enjoyed it so much that it’s the place she’s been to more than once. The only time I’ve been to Germany was when I was in the Army and we stopped there while they serviced the airplane. All I remember is that there was a vending machine with cans of Budweiser, and we all bought as many as we could until the machine was empty!