The first thing we do when we arrive in a new city is head to the grocery store. We arrived in Padua, Italy (Padova in Italian) and once James was comfortable in our Airbnb we said goodbye and started walking towards the Conad. As we walked towards the one we found on our phone’s map, we noticed a really BIG Conad a few blocks away. I said to Chris, “That store looks HUGE and it looks new!” We walked over to the Conad on the map and it turns out it was closed. The new big Conad was where we needed to go. I was actually really excited – this was by far the biggest grocery store we had seen in all of Europe so far. It was like a big US Publix or Safeway. Then I noticed the best part – this Conad was dog friendly! They had special grocery carts with a dog section! Look at this cute little dog shopping:
I wanted to go back and get James! Chris thought the cart might be just a bit too small for James. It is so nice that almost everywhere we go in Europe is dog friendly. Some of the grocery stores have signs that say no dogs. But even when I’ve seen the signs, I see people inside the store with their dogs. You would never see a pet dog in a grocery store in the US.
We used to always ask at restaurants, “Can we bring our dog inside?” The people would always look at us like we were nuts for asking and say “Of course” so we finally quit asking. So far no one has told us we have to leave!