Drinking a bottle, eating in a restaurant, shopping: where people spend the most in Europe

If you are in Norway, then you are in the European country where, on average, enjoying a glass of wine costs more. While for a meal in a restaurant, you'll find the heaviest bill in Iceland. Switzerland, on the other hand, is the country where buying food costs the most in general. To say it, the data on consumer prices, published in recent days by Eurostat, which shows, or rather confirms, in a nutshell, that, in Northern Europe, everything costs more, both when it comes to drinking a good bottle or enjoying a gastronomic experience in a restaurant. With an average EU price index of 100 (in a survey that also includes the Efta countries - European Free Trade Association), in fact, Norway is the most expensive country in terms of wine (but also alcohol in general and tobacco), with an index of 226, ahead of Iceland (212), Ireland (177) and the United Kingdom (156), and also, above the EU average, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Holland and Belgium. Below the EU average there are instead Malta (99), Greece (96) and also Italy (95), while the country where you spend less in absolute is Bulgaria (58).

In terms of cost for restaurants, bars and hotels, the absolute top is Iceland with 176 points, ahead of Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Belgium, France, Holland, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, United Kingdom and even Italy, just above the EU average (with 104 points). Among the major European countries, in this sense, the most convenient is Spain (85 points), while the cheapest ever, once again, is Bulgaria (46).

More varied, between Northern and Southern Europe, however, the situation of prices for the purchase of food. In this respect, the most expensive country is Switzerland (163 points out of an EU average of 100), just ahead of Norway (161) and Iceland (150), followed by Denmark, Luxembourg and Austria, between 126 and 130 points, while differences of a few points divide Finland (119) and Italy (113), with Ireland, Sweden, France and Belgium in the middle. Malta, Cyprus, Greece, Germany and the Netherlands are also above average, while Portugal and Slovenia (97) and Spain (96) are just below, as well as the United Kingdom (93), among others, while Romania is the cheapest country in the area (65.4). These data are of extreme synthesis, but they tell about a Europe substantially divided in two, with a generally more expensive North and a cheaper South, with some exceptions, even when we talk about sitting at the table in front of a good dish accompanied by a good glass of wine.