SPANISH TIME
Spanish time is notionally one hour ahead of the UK - but conceptually Spain might as well be on a different planet. Nowhere in Europe keeps such late hours. Spaniards may not take a traditional midday siesta so much as they used to, but their life cycles remain committedly nocturnal. They'll saunter out around 8pm or 9pm in the evening for a paseo , to greet friends and maybe have a drink and tapas, and if they're eating out, they'll commonly start at 10 or 11pm, sometimes later in Madrid. It's not unusual for someone to phone around midnight to see if you're going out for the evening.
Like everything else, practises differ somewhat by region. Madrid is famed for staying up the latest, with Andalucía a close second. In the north, particularly in Catalonia, they keep more Northern European hours. And, of course, summer nights are the real late, late shows
BULL FIGHTING.(An ancient Spanish tradition, However not one that Spainsaver.com agrees,reccommends or endorses, we do however agree with the freedom of choice so include this part in our guide,)
Bullfights are an integral part of many fiestas. In the south, especially, any village that can afford it will put on a corrida for an afternoon, while in big cities like Madrid or Sevilla, the main festival times are accompanied by a week-long (or more) season of prestige fights. Los Toros , as Spaniards refer to bullfighting, is big business. It is said that 150,000 people are involved, in some way, in the industry, and the top performers, the matadores , are major earners, on a par with the country's biggest pop stars. There is some opposition to the activity from animal welfare groups but it is not widespread: if Spaniards tell you that bullfighting is controversial, they are likely to be referring to practices in the trade. In recent years, bullfighting critics (who you will find on the arts and not the sports pages of the newspapers) have been expressing their perennial outrage at the widespread but illegal shaving of bulls' horns prior to the corrida . Bulls' horns are as sensitive as fingernails, and filing them a few millimetres deters the animal from charging; they affect the bull's balance, too, further reducing the danger for the matador .
Notwithstanding such abuse (and there is plenty more), Los Toros remain popular throughout the country. To aficionados (a word that implies more knowledge and appreciation than "fan"), the bulls are a culture and a ritual - one in which the emphasis is on the way man and bull "perform" together - in which the arte is at issue rather than the cruelty. If pressed on the issue of the slaughter of an animal, they generally fail to understand. Fighting bulls are, they will tell you, bred for the industry; they live a reasonable life before they are killed, and, if the bullfight went, so too would the bulls.
If you spend any time at all in Spain during the season (which runs from March to October), you will encounter Los Toros on a bar TV - and that will probably make up your mind whether to attend a corrida . If you decide to go, try to see a big, prestigious event, where star performers are likely to despatch the bulls with "art" and a successful, "clean" kill. There are few sights worse than a matador making a prolonged and messy kill, while the audience whistles and chucks cushions over the barrera . If you have the chance to see one, the most exciting and skilful events are those featuring mounted matadores , or rejoneadores ; this is the oldest form of corrida , developed in Andalucía in the seventeenth century.
A complete guide to bullfighting with exhaustive links can be found at www.mundo-taurino.org .
Spain's main opposition to bullfighting is organized by ADDA (Asociación para la defensa del animal). They co-ordinate the Anti-Bullfight Campaign (ABC) International and also produce a quarterly newsletter in Spanish and English.
FIESTAS.
It's hard to beat the experience of arriving in some small Spanish village, expecting no more than a bed for the night, to discover the streets decked out with flags and streamers, a band playing in the plaza and the entire population out celebrating the local fiesta. Everywhere in Spain, from the tiniest hamlet to the great cities, devotes at least a couple of days a year to their festivals. Usually it's the local saint's day, but there are celebrations of harvests, of deliverance from the Moors, of safe return from the sea - any excuse will do. There are also the events of the Catholic calendar, most notably Semana Santa (Holy Week), which in Audalucía sees theatrical religious floats carried through the streets, accompanied by hooded penitents atoning for the year's misdeeds. Each festival is different. In the Basque country there will often be bulls running flamenco and the guitar are an essential part of any celebration; in Valencia they specialize in huge bonfires and deranged firework displays (climaxing in Las Fallas in March). But this is just the mainstream. Fiestas can be very strange indeed, ranging from parades of devils to full-blown battles with water or even tomatoes.
Fiestas calendar
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Fiestas are an absolutely crucial part of Spanish life. Even the smallest village gives at least a couple of days a year over to partying, and happening across a local event can be huge fun, propelling you right into the heart of its culture. But as well as such community celebrations, Spain has some really major events: most famously the Running of the Bulls at Pamplona, the April Feria of Seville, and the great religious processions of Semana Santa, leading up to Easter. Any of these can be worth planning your whole trip around. Following is a very basic calendar of fiesta highlights . For more detailed information, consult local tourist offices. Outsiders are always welcome at fiestas, the one problem being that it can be hard to find a hotel, unless you book well in advance.
Note that saint's day festivals - indeed all Spanish celebrations - can vary in date , often being observed over the weekend closest to the dates given in our listings. Contact local tourist offices for more details.
JANUARY
16-17: San Antoni's day is preceded by bonfires and processions, especially on the Balearic Islands .
FEBRUARY
Carnaval (the week preceding Ash Wednesday and Lent) is an excuse for wild partying and masques, most riotous in Cádiz (Andalucía), Sitges (Catalunya), and Águilas (Valencia).
MARCH
12-19 Las Fallas in Valencia is the biggest of the bonfire festivals held for San José, climaxing on the Night of Fire when enormous caricatures are burnt and firecrackers take over the streets.
Easter (March/April)
Semana Santa (Holy Week) is celebrated across Spain with religious processions, at their most theatrical in the cities of Sevilla, Málaga, Murcia and Valladolid , where pasos - huge floats of religious scenes - are carried down the streets, accompanied by hooded penitents atoning for the year's misdeeds. Good Friday sees the biggest processions.
APRIL
22-24: Moros y Cristianos - mock battle between Moors and Christians - in Alcoy, Valencia. (Similar events take place throughout the year all around Spain.
23: San Jordi - Catalunya's patron saint's day is a big party across the region and is also celebrated on National Book Day throughout Spain.
Last week: Feria de Abril - spectacular week-long fair at Sevilla.
MAY
Early May: Horse Fair at Jerez (Andalucía).
7-22: San Isidro - Madrid's patron saint (15th) - is a signal for parades, free concerts, and the start of the bullfight season.
Pentecost (Whitsun:7th Sunday after Easter): the great pilgrimage to El Rocío, near Huelva (Andalucía).
Corpus Christi (Thursday after Trinity; May/June) is a focus for religious processions, accompanied by floats and penitents, notably in Toledo, Granada and Valencia. Many town fiestas also take place, including the spectacular costumed events of the Festa de la Patum (Catalunya).
JUNE
23-24: San Juan and midsummer's eve is celebrated with bonfires all over Spain - particularly in San Juan de Alicante, where a local version of Las Fallas takes place.
29: San Pedro - patron of fishermen - is honoured by flotillas of boats, and partying all along the coast.
JULY
7-14: San Fermin - the famed running of the bulls at Pamplona .
25: Santiago - Spain's patron saint, St James - is honoured at Santiago de Compostela, with fireworks and bonfires.
AUGUST
10-11 : Elche (Valencia) hosts mock battles between Christians and Moors, ending with a centuries-old mystery play.
First/second week : Mass canoe races down the Río Sella in Asturias.
Third week : Toledo's main fiesta, climaxing in amazing fireworks at the weekend.
Last week: Gigantones (giant puppets) are paraded in Alcalá de Henares (Castile).
Last Wed (usually): La Tomatina in Buñol, near Valencia: the country's craziest fiesta, a two-hour tomato fight.
SEPTEMBER
First week: Vendimia (grape harvest) celebrations at Valdepeñas (New Castile), Jerez (Andalucía) and other wine towns.
21: Rioja wine harvest celebrated in Logroño (Old Castile).
OCTOBER
1: San Miguel Villages across the country celebrate their patron saint's day
12: La Virgen del Pilar - the patron saint of Aragón - is an excuse for bullfights and jota dancing at Zaragoza and elsewhere.
DECEMBER
31: Nochevieja New year is celebrated by eating a grape for every stroke of the clock in Plaza del Sol in Madrid.
Red Tape & Visas.
Citizens of most EU countries (and of Norway and Iceland) need only a valid national identity card to enter Spain for up to six months. Since Britain has no identity card system, however, British citizens have to take a passport. US, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand citizens do not need a visa for stays of up to ninety days, but this must be for tourism purposes only and not for work or study. Visa requirements do change and it is always advisable to check the current situation before leaving home
To stay longer , EU nationals (and citizens of Norway and Iceland) can apply for a permiso de residencia (EU residence permit) once in Spain. A temporary residency permit is valid for up to a year, and you'll need an extension after that (valid for up to five years). Applications need to be made at the Oficina de Extranjeros in the main cities or at the police station nearest to where you'll be taking up residency. You'll may need to produce proof that you have sufficient funds to be able to support yourself without working, however this is not usually the case recently,
ANDALUCIA.
Above all else - and there is plenty - it's the great Moorish monuments that compete for your attention in Andalucía . The Moors, a mixed race of Berbers and Arabs who crossed into Spain from Morocco and North Africa, occupied al-Andalus for over seven centuries. Their first forces landed at Tarifa in 710 AD and within four years they had conquered virtually the entire country; their last kingdom, Granada, fell to the Christian Reconquest in 1492. Between these dates they developed the most sophisticated civilization of the Middle Ages, centred in turn on the three major cities of Córdoba, Sevilla and Granada . Each one preserves extraordinarily brilliant and beautiful monuments, of which the most perfect is Granada's Alhambra palace , arguably the most sensual building in all of Europe. Sevilla , not to be outdone, has a fabulously ornamented Alcázar and the greatest of all Gothic cathedrals. Today, Andalucía's capital and seat of the region's autonomous parliament is a vibrant contemporary metropolis that's impossible to resist. Córdoba's exquisite Mezquita , the grandest and most beautiful mosque constructed by the Moors, is a landmark building in world architecture and also not to be missed.
These three cities have, of course, become major tourist destinations, but the smaller inland towns of Andalucía are often totally unspoiled. These offer amazing potential; Renaissance towns such as Úbeda, Baeza and Osuna, Guadix with its cave suburb, Moorish Carmona and the stark white hill towns around Ronda , are all easily accessible by local buses. Travelling for some time here you'll also get a feel for the landscape of Andalucía: occasionally spectacularly beautiful but more often impressive on a huge, unyielding scale, distinguished by a patchwork of colours and the interaction of land and buildings, or the gradual appearance of villages grouped beneath a castle and church.
The province also takes in mountains - including the Sierra Nevada , Spain's highest range. You can ski here in February, and then drive down to the coast to swim the same day. Perhaps more compelling, though, are the opportunities for walking in the lower slopes, Las Alpujarras . Alternatively, there's good trekking amongst the gentler (and much less-known) hills of the Sierra Morena , north of Sevilla.
Extending to either side of Málaga is the Costa del Sol , Europe's most heavily developed resort area, with its beaches hidden behind a remorseless density of concrete hotels and apartment complexes. However, the province takes in two alternatives, much less developed and with some of the best beaches in all Spain. These are the villages between Tarifa and Cádiz on the Atlantic, and those around Almería on the southeast corner of the Mediterranean. The Almerian beaches allow warm swimming through all but the winter months; those near Cádiz, more easily accessible, are fine from about June to September. Near Cádiz, too, is the Coto de Doñana national park, Spain's largest and most important nature reserve, which is home to a spectacular range of flora and fauna.
For the last twenty years, the province has been an autonomous region with its own parliament and a substantial degree of self-government and life has improved greatly in the region, due in part to the double edged sword of property development, which has on the one hand brought great wealth to some but has seen the decline in farmlands as many landlords have sold out to developers.Forcing farm workers to seek employment in construction.
The day labourers, jornaleros , earn a precarious living from seasonal work, and in 1986 the regional government instituted land reform in an effort to head off a peasants' revolt. Numerous instances of land occupation have resulted in violent clashes between labourers and the Civil Guard. Throughout the 1990s, tourism, and cultural and sporting events, brought some changes - above all radical improvements in infrastructure, with new road and rail projects aimed at providing faster connections within the region and with Madrid and Barcelona - .
Andalucía is also Spain at its most exuberant: the home of flamenco and the bullfight, and those wild and extravagant clichés of the Great Spanish Dream. These really do exist and can be absorbed at one of the hundreds of annual fiestas, ferias and romerías . The best of them include the giant April Feria in Sevilla, the ageless pilgrimage to El Rocío near Huelva in late May, and the dramatically moving Semana Santa (Easter) celebrations at Málaga, Granada, Sevilla, Córdoba and Jerez, as well as in countless small villages.
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