Amayzine

This is the most expensive destination in Europe

16€ for a bottle of water

By May-Britt Mobach | #!31Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:43 +0200+02:004331#31Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:43 +0200+02:00-8Europe/Amsterdam3131Europe/Amsterdam202631 25am31am-31Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:43 +0200+02:008Europe/Amsterdam3131Europe/Amsterdam2026312026Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:43 +0200008007amSaturday=9#!31Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:43 +0200+02:00Europe/Amsterdam7#07-25-2026#!31Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:43 +0200+02:004331#/31Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:43 +0200+02:00-8Europe/Amsterdam3131Europe/Amsterdam202631#!31Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:43 +0200+02:00Europe/Amsterdam7#

I am traveling quite a lot this summer, which means I am doing a lot of comparative shopping. The summer started with a road trip through Sweden (also not cheap), continued with five days in Tuscany (was already much better in terms of price-quality ratio) and went further through central France to Sitges and Barcelona to southern France, where we settled on the beach of Pampelonne, you know, within kissing distance of Saint-Tropez.

The first evening: a Negroni for 25 euros

Okay, I know you shouldn't go there if you're struggling to make ends meet, but this, I've never experienced before. And if you've been following me for a while, you know that I'm not really the camping type who is fine with a three-star hotel. No, I can greatly appreciate luxury and am also willing to pay a bit for it, especially after a year of hard work. But this, here, in southern France, this takes the cake. It started on the first evening, where we ate at a beautiful beach club. A place where your bag gets a stool. We were presented with the drink menu and were tempted by all the festivities. It's just as well I hadn't ordered a drink yet, otherwise, I would have choked on it. A Negroni? 25 euros. An Aperol Spritz? 20 euros. A Coke for my daughter? 10 euros. And no, you didn't get a bottle with that.

We decided not to look at the second column (the prices) on the menu. We were there anyway, life had to be celebrated, let’s go. But now I did choke on my drink, I had that Negroni of course ordered anyway. Because a simple pasta with Parmesan cheese and butter was listed here for 53 euros.

A bottle of Badoit for € 16

And so it went on. The next day I ordered at a beach club, okay, that was Le Club 55 and is not known for low prices, three coffees and a fruit juice. What I had to pay for that? € 42,-. For a bottle of Badoit (the French version of our Spa red) at lunch, they casually asked for 16 euros, and the famous plate of raw vegetables (think a head of lettuce, a boiled egg in its shell, uncut tomatoes, and a few stalks of celery, and okay, their famous vinaigrette) costs € 45,- per person as a starter. The only justification for all this is that the service is great, the food divine, and the entertainment (there was a guy walking around who had written on his shirt that he had a Warhol and a Basquiat for sale for 29 million for “only” 9 million) almost priceless.

The jellyfish and the credit card

When I ended the lovely summer day with a dip in the Mediterranean, I made an attempt to break the record for running out of the sea as quickly as possible within two seconds. The reason? A jellyfish, or in other words: a classic jellyfish. The lady at the reception had a solution: just move very quickly past the painful spot with... a credit card.