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
