I was in a small town market south of Orleans, people acted like they had never seen a 500 note before.
I ve picked up euros in HK banks where they only had 500notes in stock, but those notes are difficult to use to pay for little priced items ime, not surprised Delta strike had a hard time paying with them in a small town market
Interesting thread. My wife and I are going to Spain later this year. Barcelona and the Basque region. I couldn't believe the number of Michelin Star Restaurants there. https://espanafascinante.com/en/gas...helin-star-restaurants-in-the-basque-country/
I've never seen a 500 euro note in person and I'm from the EU. Most of the ATMs don't spit out anything higher than 50 euro notes.
I have never physically used nor carried more than $200 in my entire life. Back to Spain, having lived/stayed there for 3 months, I was forced to interact with the underlying society in way that a typical tourist wouldn't, which made me realise how stupid I was to plan to relocate there from a developed country. I see the general population (local, not immigrant segment) is uneducated, loud, rude, slow, poor, lazy, more comparable to Greece/Turkey than to other northern EU countries. There is no practical way to achieve economic convergence with the north and the structural south-north trade imbalances are permanant.
In North America, everything is paid for by cards and can withdraw cash at any card-accepting registers. In Asia, small items are paid for by e-cash (suica, optopus etc) and larger items by credit cards. I can't recall using cash. Even in 3rd world spain where IT literacy is low, I only withdrew 400euro in the entire 3 months but spent north of 10k in total.
Sounds nuts not to travel with a bunch of cash to me, and saying Spain is 3Rd world implies you haven't travelled much. Also if u ve spent 10k in 3 months it is unlikely u got to see what posh Spain looks like. Sounds incredibly cheap as well, going out with ur mates with less than 200usd cash. But than I ve worked in a cash rich scene where not carrying cash with u is seen very negatively. To each their own. Even my 9 y o is used to carry more than 200bucks, although not on a daily fashion... I have a hard time figuring how one would t want to travel with at least a few Ks in cash
Fwiw and I m sure u ve read it already Northern Catalunya also has a whole bunch of 3stars restaurants, the area has like the biggest density of 3stars in the world, per inhabitant probably. You should enjoy your trip if you are a gourmet. Advisable to book well in advance in some of those places. Also I m more into sandwiches and fast restaurants when travelling alone or with the kids and after a few days have found ways to eat decently, at least by my pretty low standards, feeling pretty relaxed overall, although paperwork is moving very slowly ( I m no longer very active though, kind of fit in well) Opening a bank account coming from China proved very complicated btw, glad I finally asked the lawyer for help who fixed the issue promptly, now it remains to be seen if the money I wired to Spain will be easily disposable  It seems we will be still short from being settled in legally when the school year starts, saying Spain bureaucracy is slow is not an understatement. Needed 7 months earlier this year to receive an official document from Spain. Needed to go with it a whole bunch of official docs from France which arrived in a few days. By the time the Spanish doc showed up the French docs were no longer valid... There are no taxes on importing one s belongings when moving to Spain but one need to provide an official Spanish document. We didn't t even try to get it, and ended up giving away all our furnitures...Mrs is still busy clearing the house, a bit sad as we had a bunch of French designer furnitures including 2 one of a kind desk/table, slow bureaucracy does suck...