But the typical beer experience in France is a bit different from the one in North America or the UK, ranging from how pints are typically ordered and served to the types of popular beers on tap. Read on for the basics on what to expect when ordering a round in the City of Light

Related:

• 6 Tips for buying wine in France
• Buying a Sim Card in France
• 50 Ways to save on your trip to France

Tips for ordering French beer

1. Small or large?

In France, you don’t just get to choose the type of beer you want, but also the size of the glass. Your bartender will ask you if you want “un demi” (a half-pint that costs about €3 to 4), or “une pinte” (a pint that costs €6-8). The demi almost always costs half what the pint costs. If you’re not a big drinker, or simply want to pace yourself, the demi can make a good option, but the pint might save you a bit if you plan on drinking more than one demi.

2. Beer always comes with a glass

If you order a bottled beer, the bartender or server will always give you a glass to pour your drink into, whether you asked for one or not. This small cultural difference between France and the United States shocked an older French acquaintance of mine on a trip to Louisiana when, after ordering a bottled beer in New Orleans, the bartender just plonked down the bottle and left. “You always serve it with a glass,” he said to me, sighing, “because, it’s just, that’s just what you do.”

Bars always serve beer in a glass. Always. Photo: Matt Seppings

3. Cost depends on your seat

While the cost of beer in anglophone countries only depends on the beer type you’ve ordered, in France, the cost can also depend on where you decide to sit. If you choose a seat at the bar, your drink will cost about €1 cheaper than if you decide to sit at a table. And in some establishments, such as posh restaurants on the Champs-Elysées, your drinks will cost a few euros more if you sit outside. So when going for a drink, just keep in mind that if you find a great seat, you might be paying a bit extra for the privilege of being there.

Related: What you can expect to pay in Paris — and how to pay less!

4. Keep an eye out for happy hours

A welcome relief in one of the most expensive cities in the world, happy hours offer discounts on drinks in many bars and pubs around town. Establishments offering a happy hour usually advertise that fact on a chalkboard or easel just next to their entrances, making them easy to spot.

Related: 10 tips for saving on dining in Paris

Keep an eye out for happy hours like this one in the Latin Quarter in Paris. Photo: Elaine

5. Would you like syrup with that?

In France, sugary fruit syrups are not just for lattés. The French are known for mixing a variety of syrups with their beer. Popular offerings include peach, strawberry, lemon, ginger, black currant and mint. You can also order a beer with a shot of grenadine — just ask for “un tango“. It costs about €.20 to .50 extra to get a shot of syrup.

6. “Picon” mixes in citrus

Typical of the Paris region and in much of northern France, “picon” is an aperitif made from fresh oranges and distilled alcohol. It is also commonly mixed with beer. Ask for “une picon biére” at a bar and you’ll get a sweet drink with a hint of citrus. It will only cost you about €.50 to €1.50 extra.

7. “Panaché” mixes in lemonade

Called the “panaché“, this drink is half beer, half carbonated lemonade. A variation, called the “Biére Monaco“, is the same thing but with a shot of grenadine included. If you find yourself sitting on a terrace on a hot summer day, this mixture can be a really refreshing relief from the heat.

Pelforth is a classic brew from northern France. Photo: Clayton Parker

8. So, what’s on tap?

If you check the tap at just about any bar, café, bistro or restaurant in Paris, you’ll almost always find the following:

Kronenbourg 1664: A light, crisp lager produced in Alsace.

Grimbergen: From the Flanders region of Belgium, this brand makes a wide variety of popular ales and wheat beers.

Pelforth: A brewery which makes a famously light pale ale of the same name, produced in the northern French region of Nord de Pas Calais.

Other beers that make frequent appearances include the Belgian wheat beer brand Leffe, the Belgian pilsner Stella Artois, and Dutch lagers Heineken and Grolsch.

Related: Tasting the unique beer culture of Lille for less

9. Christmas beers

Some breweries whip up a batch of warming, hoppy specialty beers for Christmas, known as “les bieres de noel”. Brasserie Schutzenberger and Meteor, two brewers from Alsace, produce popular bieres de noel that can be found in bars and in supermarkets come December.

10. Traditional French beer from the Calais region

Known as “biere de garde“, these amber or gold-colored brews generally have a malty taste and have high alcohol content. Some well-known biere de garde brewers in France include Trois Monts, Jenlain and Brasserie Castelain. While not found quite as often on tap in Paris, they can be picked up at most supermarkets or in specialty beer or wine stores.

Bonus Cheapo Tip: If you want to do a beer tasting in your hotel room, however, this would be the cheapest way, with a 75 cl bottle of most domestic beers costing less than €3 at the supermarket.

Related: A guide to Paris supermarkets

Santé!

The post Paris: A guide to ordering beer in France appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Whether you’re looking for some vin rouge to go with your dinner or you want a bottle for a friendly picnic, here are some tips to keep in mind for picking an affordable wine.

1. Don’t be thrown off by labels or price tags

Higher prices and pretty labels are not indicative of how much you will like a wine. Bottles at restaurants can cost €20, €40, €60 and beyond.

While the wine will probably be good, less discerning pallets can opt for the much cheaper and equally tasty carafe or pichet of wine. This is a house wine that is served in a small pitcher or glass bottle that comes with none of the frills of a Saint-Emillon or Chateauneuf du Pape, but it will still be a tasty accompaniment to most French meals.

Don’t feel goofy asking for a pichet at lunch or dinner, because even the locals will order up some house red, white, or rosé on a typical evening.

2.  Don’t get too cheapo…

When purchasing a bottle of wine at the grocery store or wine store, even Cheapos have a limit. Any bottle under €3 is rarely something that you’d want to drink, more often reserved for cooking or wild student parties. Stick to the €5-10 range to ensure that the wine won’t make you wince.

Appellation Medoc Contrôlée. Photo: Dominic Lockyer

3. “AOC”? A-OK!

Look for the AOC, or appellation d’origine contrôlée on any bottle you purchase. This indicates that the wine is a credible Bordeaux, Burgundy, or whatever other region (origine) it may claim. Without the AOC, there is no way to know if the wine was made by a professional or from some guy down the street in his bathtub.

Still, if you go to a wine bistrot like Le Verré Volé, many of their wines don’t have a AOC. However, you can be sure that the specialists in the store have visited the vineyards and know exactly where that wine is coming from.

4. Think inside the box, but outside the jug

Box is OK, but plastic jugs might be pushing it. Box wine is not quite trendy, but is accepted with wine stores like Nicolas offering up affordable varieties.

The liter-sized plastic jugs at the supermarkets, however, are not to be trusted. Take a tip from someone who may or may not have been there – it’s not worth testing unless you want your wine to double as a paint-remover.

5.  Know when to say “non”

If you taste a wine and it doesn’t suit your tastes, hopefully you didn’t buy a whole bottle of it at a restaurant. That said, if a wine tastes particularly offensive, with smells and tastes that seem unfit for any mouth, it may be corked, which means the wine has been spoiled in the bottling or aging process.

While rare, receiving a corked glass or bottle of wine can happen, and if you are really unable to drink the wine, ask your bartender or server what they think and they will usually be honest with you.

6. Supermarket wine is not taboo

With aisles devoted to all sorts of regional French wines, Parisian supermarkets like Monoprix and Franprix are acceptable places to buy a bottle for dinner or a picnic.

If you want to ask questions or are looking for something specific, however, head to a wine shop, or caviste. Nicolas or Le Repaire de Bacchus are two such chains found all over the city. Additionally, there are countless independent wine shops and bistros that will be happy to help you find what you’re seeking.

Your wine questions or advice?

What other questions do you have about wine in France? Have some advice to share with our readers? Join the conversation in our comments section!

Also in our guide: Heading to Paris soon and looking for advice on great affordable sleeps? Our editors have hunted down the best hotel deals, all visited, inspected and reviewed by EuroCheapo. Read more in our Paris guide.

Note: This post was updated on September 30, 2015 with new links, photos and information.

The post France: 6 wine buying tips for Cheapos appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Tokaj or Tokaji

Say Tokay and most people will immediate think Hungary. But the Tokay region, which produces some of the world’s most celebrated and sought-after dessert wines, transgresses borders, and the northernmost portion of the designated Tokay region is actually in Slovakia.

This is a part of the world where one letter makes a big difference. On maps, the range of wooded hills that dominate the Hungarian part of the Tokay region is known at the Zemplén Mountains. Move north into Slovakia and they become the Zemplín Mountains. In Hungary, the wine is known as Tokaji. But in Slovakia, the name is rendered as Tokaj.

The wines on the Slovakian side of the border are every bit as distinguished in character as those from Hungary. They rely on the same three basic grape varieties and the production and quality control standards of Slovakian Tokaj wines conform to those laid down for Tokaji in Hungary.

The Penzión Tokaj on the Ostrozovic Estate. Photo: © hidden europe

A taste of Slovakian Tokaj

Last week, we took time to explore the Slovak side of the Tokay region. We stopped off here and there in quiet villages like Malá Trna—where Hungarian is evidently still the most commonly spoken language. It’s a nice reminder that modern frontiers in Europe do not divide ethnicities or language groups. Then we moved north to Vel’ká Trna, a predominantly Slovak-speaking community, where we met Jaro Ostrozovic.

Jaro was born just a few miles away to the south in the border town of Slovenské Nové Mesto, but is now based in Vel’ká Trna, where he and his wife Jarka manage one of the premier Tokaj wine businesses in Slovakia. The Ostrozovic Estate produces the full range of Tokaj styles from the tongue-tingling dry samorodné through various grades of sweet aszú-style wines (locally known as Tokajský výber) to the intoxicatingly sugary esencia.

They also produce regular wines from each of the three main grapes that are combined in making the region’s signature Tokaj wines. Those grapes are the furmint, the yellow muscat and the lipovina—the latter will be familiar to lovers of Hungarian Tokaji under the name hárslevelü.

Wine growers Jarka and Jaro Ostrozovic. Photo: © hidden europe

The Ostrozovic Estate

Visitors to the Ostrozovic winery in Vel’ká Trna can tour the cellars, sample the wines and stay overnight. Room rates start at €35 for a single or €25 per person in a shared double. It is a chance, too, to try some of the local Zemplín cuisine.

As to the wines, you’ll be in for a treat. The rich concentration of natural grape sugars and favorable conditions for the development of botrytis give Ostrozovic favored status for making classic Tokaj sweet wines. And they won’t break the bank. Prices start at just over €10 for a Tokajský výber. We happen to be fans of the drier samorodné style, which is often frustratingly hard to find outside the Tokay region and one or two other markets (such as Poland, where it has long found favor as an aperitif). The Ostrozovic version is delicious and just €6.80 a bottle. Just look for the word suché on the bottle to be sure that you really are buying the dry wine. It is something quite special, redolent in many ways of palomino sherry.

The Slovakian Tokaj region deserves to be far better known. It is overshadowed by its very much larger Hungarian counterpart to the south, and it is a small player within the wider Slovak wine industry. If you have a big budget, sixty euros will buy you a very fine bottle of Ostrozovic esencia. Taste it to discover why historically Tokay has been feted as “the wine of kings, and the king of wines.” But even a sample of the lesser wines from the region will be enough to convince you that Tokay is something very special—especially when it is Tokaj from Slovakia.

The post Visiting Slovakia’s affordable wine region appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Sparkling water fountains are popular in Italy and were first introduced in Paris in 2010 in an effort to reduce the plastic waste produced by the over-consumption of bottled water.

La Pétillante (The Sparkling) fountains are able to deliver chilled sparkling water thanks to a clever system that cools public water to a precise temperature using an ice block and adds carbon dioxide to the carefully cooled water to make it bubbly.

The sparkling water is distributed in roughly five ounce portions to avoid waste. But you can bring your own bottle to refill. And at the fountain at Park André Citroën new Philippe Starck-designed reusable water bottles are now on sale for €3.

The city’s two other sparkling fountains are located at the Jardin de Reuilly in the 12th arrondissement, and at the headquarters of Eau de Paris on 19 rue Neuve-Tolbiac in the 13th. And this year Eau de Paris plans to install an additional two new fountains, at Jardin d’Éole in the 18th arrondissement and Parc Martin Luther King, ZAC des Batignolles in the 17th, with another at the Square Tino Rossi in the 5th arrondissement coming in the spring of 2014.

The post Paris Rolls Out Its Third Free Sparkling Water Fountain appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Between 7 PM and 9 PM,  most bars in Italy offer a small buffet to their customers—upon purchase of a drink, naturally. In some places, the aperitivo has become an art form. By picking the right bar, you can enjoy a full, all-you-can-eat buffet for the price of your Campari Spritz. To get your fill in Florence, check out these places:

Kitsch
Via San Gallo or Piazza Beccaria

This bar is famous for its abundant spread, and there will be the crowds to prove it. Try to arrive around 7 or 7:30 PM to get a table, there are even a few outside if the weather is nice. Arriving later usually means waiting for a table and then having people successively waiting for you to leave.

For the price of €8, Kitsch offers you your choice of drink and a buffet of cured meats, cheeses, hot and cold rice and pasta dishes, grilled vegetables, and a few meat dishes. Don’t be afraid of the hard-boiled egg covered in a pink sauce. I can’t tell you what it is, but it’s delicious!

Moyo
Via de’ Benci, near Santa Croce
website

The dark mood lighting and “M”-shaped chairs may be a bit much in terms of décor, but don’t let that take away from the reasonably-priced drinks and well-balanced buffet. For about €7, you’ll find mini sandwiches, omelettes, rice and pasta salads, and a few hot dishes. The offerings are a bit lighter than what’s at Kitsch, but the bar is usually less packed and has a more sophisticated vibe.

Pop Café’
Piazza Santo Spirito
website

In terms of aperitivi, this may be a bit of an alternative spot, providing a good vegetarian buffet and some really good people watching. Drinks range from €4 for wine up to €6 for a cocktail. Included are various vegetarian foods,  such as couscous, rice salads, and potato dishes.

It’s better to sit outside, even if it’s crowded and you’re forced to the sidewalk of the piazza, because the Pop Café’s interior is small and narrow. But that’s exactly the point of Pop: to eat and drink cheaply and go outside and mingle. You’ll find a nice mix of Italians and foreigners, and as the night goes on the most “picturesque” people come out of the woodwork to provide some notable post-aperitivo entertainment.

So go ahead and try these aperitivi and more! Given the popularity and lure of the aperitivo, bars are constantly changing and offering more.  So don’t hesitate to experiment and sample to find the right aperitivo for you.

The post Florence Aperitivos: Free delicious food for the price of a drink appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Fortunately, in Paris there are 108 “fontaines Wallace” and three functional “puits artésien” (artesian wells). Situated around the city’s busiest squares and at intersections in each arrondissement, the water is free for sipping; all you will need is an empty bottle.

Wallace 101

The “puits artésien,” with their over-sized faucets made of chrome, certainly possess that sleek French chic we associate with marvels like the TGV, but my heart belongs to Wallace.

“Les fontaines Wallace” were named after the British philanthropist and art collector Sir Richard Wallace, who generously financed the installation of 50 fountains throughout Paris after the Franco-Prussian War left the city with almost no clean drinking water. Designed by Charles Auguste Lebourg, these cast iron fountains in four versions remain iconic darlings of the Paris streetscape. They are uniformly painted a deep emerald green.

The largest model, nicknamed the “Brasserie des quatre femmes” (brewery of the four women), sports four fetching caryatides, each symbolizing kindness, simplicity, charity, and sobriety. The figures are draped in sinuous tunics that are pinned just-so to reveal a handsome knee. Ooh la la!

Artesian… well!

Grab your bottle and follow me to my favorite “puits artésien” in Paris. In the 13th arrondissement, in the quaint little village of Butte-aux-Cailles (Quail Hill), at Place Paul-Verlaine, an historic well has been in operation since 1866.

Many locals, like actress Nausicaa Giavarra—with whom I spoke on a recent trip to Butte-aux-Cailles, count their lucky stars to live nearby one of the old fountains. Each day, Giavarra fills a dozen water bottles along with a small plastic atomizer.

“I mist my face throughout the day. This place is my fountain of youth!” she told me.

Across the street from the fountain is one of the oldest Parisian public “piscines” (swimming pools) fed by the pressurized well water. Both are worth a look.

A Wallace fountain at Place des Abbesses.

To visit this delightful watering spot, take the Metro to “Corvisart” or “Place d’Italie.”

Tip: After topping off your bottle, check out the surrounding hilly, cobblestoned neighborhood. Once an infamous red light district (prostitute=quail), Butte-aux-Cailles now offers an impressive number of cheap eats, bars, and shops, but few tourists. You’ll feel like you’ve stepped back in time.

Practical Information

For a full list of “les fontaines Wallace” in Paris, click here. Another good list is available here, though it’s only in French.

Finally, I can’t resist leaving you with a cinematic tidbit: In the 2001 film “The fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain,” Amélie’s concierge was named “Madeleine Wallace” because she cried like a Wallace fountain.

About the author and photographer: Theadora Brack is a writer working in Paris. Her fiction has appeared in more than 30 literary publications, including 3AM International, The Smoking Poet, Beloit Fiction Journal, Mid-American Review, and the Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal.

The post Paris: Free water at historic fountains (just bring a bottle!) appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Though viniai are technically wine vendors, they’ve adapted to changing times and appetites, including the sandwich and snack craze. These days, a couple of Euros gets you a glass of wine, though a couple more will buy you a focaccia sandwich with your choice of ingredients. It’s one tasty deal.

You’ll notice immediately that these are not large shops. In fact, they can be amusingly cramped. But they are packed, from floor to ceiling, with fabulous local and national wines (and usually a character or two!).

Recommended by tour guides and taxi drivers alike (and endorsed by the crowd almost always outside), I Fratellini (Via dei Cimatori, 38/r) is the city favorite.

The post Florence: Cheap Sipping and Supping at I Fratellini appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.