Spain

Top destinations in Spain

Barcelona Madrid See a full list of places

Currency and money

The currency in Spain is the Euro. One euro breaks down into 100 cents. As a rule of thumb the exchange rates to the euro are approximately:

• 0.70 Pounds Sterling
• 1.1 US Dollars
• 1.5 Canadian Dollars
• 1.5 Australian Dollars

The Euro is the second most common currency in the world after the US dollar, and the same banknotes are used in all the countries in the Euro-zone (each country issues different coins, but these differ only in the picture on the back, and can be used outside their country of issue). Even in the European countries which do not use the Euro as their official currency, it is still very common to find it accepted in larger shops and hotels (sometimes at a suprisingly reasonable rate of exchange). It should not be difficult to exchange into or out of Euros at currency exchanges worldwide.

Travellers Cheques:

As with the rest of Europe, travellers cheques are not as useful here as in North America. Large Hotels and stores may accept them in lieu of cash, but most places will simply direct you to a bank to cash them. Banks can charge fairly high commission for this, especially if you are converting into a different currency. It is generally cheaper (although less dependable) to get cash from a home debit or credit card using an ATM machine. If you get travellers cheques, and will be moving between countries it is probably best to get them in Euros.

ATM Machines:

Large cities in Spain are not short of ATMs, and the structure of the banking system, with quite a few regionally-based banks ensures that there are branches (with ATM attached) in even quite small towns. They will pretty much all accept Visa, Mastercard and other cash networks such as Plus, Cirrus and Maestro. Be aware that if a machine retains your card you will probably not be able to get it returned to you - always try to travel with more than one card, and ideally some spare cash in case of emergency.

Credit and Debit cards:

Credit cards are less acceptable in Spain than in much of the rest of Western Europe. Large shops will accept Visa and Mastercard, and American Express is also fairly widely accepted. It is common to also require proof of ID (usually a passport). The main issue for customers from outside Europe however is likely to be Chip and PIN, which foreign cards are often not compatible with. In theory customers should be able to sign for their purchases if this is the case, but not all outlets will allow this. In any event signatures will be checked, and if the card must be used only by its owner.

Language

Unsurisingly the main official language of Spain is Spanish. This ignores the highly regional character of Spain however. The Spanish language, or Castellano to give it its Spanish name, is actually only the language of choice in the old kingdom of Castille (the central parts of Spain) and the south of the country. In the remainder of the country a range of different languages are spoken, several of which bear little or no resemblance to Spanish. In Catalonia and Valencia to the east of the country, Catalan and Valencian are romance languages with strong similarities to Spanish, French and Italian, so good speakers of these languages should be able to pick things up fairly quickly. Galicia, in the northwest however has Celtic roots, and has more in common with Welsh, and Scots and Irish Gallic. Finally Basque, spoken in the fiercely independent Basque country and Navarre in the central North of the country, bears no resemblance to any European languages, making it extremely difficult for the casual traveller to pick up at all

Getting by in Spanish.

Travellers trying to get by with reasonable Spanish should be fine in all regions of the country - everybody learns Castellano to a reasonable level at school. The main problem is likely to be a reluctance to use Spanish in areas such as the Basque country - people will sometimes insist on using English even when they barely know a word of it and Spanish would be a far easier choice. Speakers of American Spanish may find a little difficulty with the accent which is far thicker in Spain, and particularly in Andalucia to the South of the country.

Getting by in English.

English is not as widely spoken in Spain as in the rest of Western Europe, although changes in the education system over the last 20 years, and the spread of American television, means that this is rapidly changing amongst the younger population. In Madrid and heavily tourist areas there will always be somebody around who can speak English, and indeed quite a lot of the signage at railway stations and the like in Madrid is provided in English. In less touristy parts of the South however, there are less people who speak English, and signs are usually only in Spanish - you may be reduced to pointing and writing numbers down occasionally here.

Things get more complex in the regions, where signs have no room for English, since they are in Spanish and the language of that region. If anything English is slightly more widely-spoken here than in the Spanish-speaking regions, either as a way of avoiding speaking Spanish too often, or simply because the locals are used to having to learn a second language. You might find yourself having a little trouble, but in the end there will be enough English speakers that you will get by just fine.

Finally, if you are going to spend any amount of time in Spain, take the trouble to learn a few words of the language. Spanish isn't especially difficult to pronounce, and plenty of guides are available which can teach you how to say things like "Please" (por favor), "Sorry" (lo siento), and "Thank you" (gracias), and numbers (uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez).

Shop opening

Shop opening hours vary from region to region in Spain. Large town-centre shops such as El Corte Ingles generally open from Monday to Saturday at 9-10 am, and close in the evenings at 8-10 pm. Smaller shops, particularly in the south are likely to close for a siesta in the afternoon. In the north stores are more likely to close earlier in the evenings. Very few stores are open at all on Sundays, and if they are they will typically only open in the mornings.

Convenience stores (which often also sell alcohol), and tobacconists and news-stands usually open early and close late - often around 10pm. In some areas of the country these stores are open Sundays, but generally it is not a good idea to depend on any stores opening on a Sunday - if you need supplies such as water, buy them on Saturday.

Banks usually open at 8-9 am, close for the day at around 2-3 pm, with even shorter hours on a Saturday and no opening on Sundays. Post Offices vary in opening hours, with the smaller branches opening mornings only and not at all at weekends, and a few major offices opening from 8:30 am to 10 pm. Even then these are usually only open for a few hours on a Saturday and rarely open at all on Sundays.

By Air.

Air travel is certainly the quickest way to get to Spain. Most budget and scheduled airlines run flights to the major cities from all over the world. In addition the local budget airline Vueling runs flights from Barcelona to various European capitals.

By Train.

If you wish to avoid travelling by air, or have a rail pass, it is possible to get trains through the following routes:

• From Paris and the south-west of France through to San Sebastien in the Basque area on the north coast of Spain.
• More regular services run from Barcelona in the north-east to Paris and other destinations in Western Europe.
• Elipsos (a joint venture between RENFE and SNCF) run high quality Train Hotel sleeper services from Barcelona to Paris, Milan and Zurich. These are often fully booked a while in advance.
• It is also possible to catch trains to Cerbere, just over the border in France, from where the French rail operator SNCF run various day and night trains to other parts of France, and a normal night train to the Italian border

By Ferry.

• P&O Ferries run bi-weekly ferries from Bilbao to Portsmouth in the UK, taking approximately 36 hours.
• Valencia is connected to Salerno in southern Italy by bi-weekly ferries operated by Grimaldi, again taking more than a day.
• Grandi Navi Veloci connect Barcelona to Genova in the north of Italy in just 18 hours.
• Various ferries and hydrofoils run from Tarifa and Algeciras at the southern tip of Spain to Morocco, taking between 40 minutes and 2 hours.

Getting around by public transport

Long distance transport in Spain is by air, train or coach depending on your budget and the journey you want to undertake.

Train travel

can be a comfortable, cheap and occasionally quick way to get from one place to another. In spite of the fact that almost all trains are run by the state-owned RENFE company, the system is insanely and unecessarily complex. Here are a few points to bear in mind:

• Rail passes are a complete waste of time. Prices for ordinary tickets are pretty cheap - less than 50 euros to get a sleeper train from one end of the country to the other, and supplements for using rail-passes are so high (over 20 euros for the same journey), that the saving will almost never cover the cost of the pass. If you are using a pass such as Eurail, consider saving the days for more expensive countries. If you are using a period pass such as Inter-rail, consider visiting Spain before or after the period of validity. If you are considering getting a EuroDomino or Iberia pass, don't.
• In spite of being a single company, RENFE effectively operates as two completely separate divisions; Grandes Lineas RENFE and Regionales. Grandes Lineas RENFE runs all the long-distance high speed trains, and Regionale provides short distance and Cercanias (local and commuter) trains. These companies have a totally separate fare structure and attitude to rail passes and bookings. All Grandes Lineas (and Alta Velocidad) trains must be booked in advance, often at least a day before travel, and you will incur supplements using rail passes on these routes. Regionale services cannot be booked in advance, and it is easy to buy a ticket from a machine and travel immediately. They also do not charge supplements for rail passes. It is useful to know the difference as both run on a number of routes, for example from Madrid to Valencia - here the Grand Lineas trains take 3 hours and run several times a day, but cost twice as much as the much more interesting 5 hour journey by Regionale.
• Use the right counter at the station. Regionale counters cannot provide information or sell tickets for Grand Lineas trains. Grand Lineas counters will only provide information on Regionale trains where they are needed to complete a long-distance journey, and if they do decide to give you information otherwise it is quite likely to be inaccurate. Each type of counter also has a sales window and an information window. You cannot get information at the sales windows. NOT EVEN PRICE INFORMATION. They will just send you to the information window. Go to the information window first and get all the prices for all the options, get them to print out all the options, and then take the printouts to the sales counter to make sure you are sold the right thing. It is impossible to emphasize enough how much easier your life at a station will be if you follow this procedure, otherwise you will be thrown into a Kafka-esque nightmare of being passed from line to line, and desk to desk without any idea of what you have done wrong.
• Catch night trains. There are probably more routes running at night than during the day anyway, and the sleeper supplements are pretty cheap compared to the cost of a night of accomodation.
• Use the journey planner on the RENFE website. If there isn't a direct train for the journey you are undertaking, look at flights or buses. The website defines anything less than an hour as being a tight connection, and because prices are related to distance travelled roundabout routes can be pretty uncompetitive.

Air Travel

. If you want to travel from one side of Spain to the other, air travel offers a quick and relatively comfortable way to cover the distance. If you are travelling outside the peak season, or are able to book the journey well in advance, it can also be a fairly cheap way to travel. The two key operators to check out are Vueling, a budget airline which operates mainly out of Barcelona and Valencia flying to other destinations in Spain and various European capitals, and Iberia, which is the Spanish national airline and runs a number of bargain flights within the country.

Coach Travel

. Long-distance buses are more widely used in Spain than in much of Western Europe. This is principally because they fill the enormous gaps in the national train network, and even where trains do run, they are often able to compete on both price and speed. There does not however appear to be a simple central location to get information about travelling by coach. Most of the operators are smallish local companies or regional alliances, and information is pretty much only available once you arrive in Spain. That said, a journey planner which covers a large number of routes in Northern Spain is available through the website of ALSA, which appears to be an alliance of operators in the area. In comparison to the railways, getting information and buying tickets for coaches once you are at the station you want to depart from seems to be almost unbelieveably simple - there is usually just one counter where they will do everything. That said, they are even less likely to speak English than the staff at train stations, so be ready to struggle by with phrases such as "solo ida" (single) and "ida y vuelta" (return).

Ferries and hydrofoils

run by Transmediterranea regularly link Barcelona and Valencia on the Spanish mainland to the Balearic Islands.

Post

Stamps can be bought from Post Offices and tobacconists. Letters for any destination can be put into any yellow post box. Letters to be sent Airmail to foreign countries should have the appropriate sticker attached in the top left corner. As at October 2005, costs for a standard letter up to 20g are:

• 28 cents for standard delivery (1-3 days) within Spain.
• 53 cents for letters to Europe.
• 78 cents for letters to all other destinations.

Up to date prices, and full details are available from Correos (The Spanish Post Office)

Phone

The international calling code for the Spain is 38.

Numbers are generally quoted in the form of an 3 digit area code followed by a six-digit number, for example:

   544 xx xx xx

You should dial the whole number as written. If you are calling from abroad, simply dial the international prefix followed by the area code.

Spain is one of the cheaper places in Western Europe for making international calls from. Calling cards are available at tobacconists and other shops. Many of these offer great value on international calls, with different cards being better value for different countries. The best way to choose one is to check with other travellers which card they have found to be the best value for money.

As a visitor you generally have three options for making calls:

• Using a payphone. Calls from these to numbers within Spain are quite reasonably priced, though it will usually be cheaper to use a calling card for international calls. There appear to be few, if any, coin operated payphones in Spain, so it is necessary to buy a Telefonica phone card (Tarjeta telefonica) for 6 Euros from tobacconists or post offices.
• Using your mobile phone from home. Check tariffs with your phone provider. North American phones do not usually work in Spain.
• Buying a Pay-as-you-go phone or SIM card in Spain. Movistar (owned by the fixed-line operator Telefonica) provide pre-pay SIM cards for 25 Euros (including 19 Euros of credit). These must be validated before use by calling 220 to pick a tariff, and the card will expire 6 months after the date of the last top-up. Amena offer similar cards, although these are valid for a full 12 months before expiry.

Internet

Most towns at least a couple of Internet cafes of various types and quality. These range from the places mostly dedicated to online gaming, which are more likely to offer voice and webcam facilities, but often charge more, through to the basic terminals available at many Western Union outlets. Look out for the word RED on signs (this is Spanish for net). easyinternet provide a consistent easy-to-use interface at locations in some of Spains larger cities, and are usually at the cheaper end of the price range, especially if you take advantage of the daily or weekly passes. It is also worth noting that many hostels provide free internet access in Spain.

Newspapers

Spain has three main national newspapers, El Pais which is a the leading left-wing newspaper, El Mundo which is the leading right-wing paper, and also ABC. All of these have an online edition of some description, although often you cannot read more than a few of the articles without a subscription. In addition to these there are wide range of regional newspapers, such as El Periodico in Catalonia which have a larger overall circulation. Finally the major cities all have at least one free paper, which is generally quite good for gig listings and simple-to-read short articles - just look out for them outside Metro stations.

A range of English language newspapers such as Costa Del Sol News are also published, particularly in the areas on the south coast with large ex-pat British populations.

Hostels

Hostels in Spain are hugely variable both in character and quality. The concept of an out-and-out backpackers' hostel seems pretty new outside of Barcelona and Madrid. Places which describe themselves as such are often little more than a Bed and Breakfast which has latched onto the new market. That said, these places can often provide a pretty good cheap service, and as long as they've convinced a decent crowd of travellers to stay, they can be just as good a place for meeting like-minded people. The best hostels are undoubtedly in Madrid, where there are a range to cater to everybody from the out and out party crowd to the more discerning traveller who wants to get to sleep after a night out. Spanish hostels often (but far from always) provide free internet and breakfast. Look out for this as it can save you quite a lot on internet cafes and save on the cost of a meal if you fill up enough.

For traditional youth hostels, the Hostelling International member organization in Spain is Red Espanola de Auberges Juveniles (Spanish Youth Hostel Network). These have the usual curfews, and rooms are generally separated by gender, but the network is quite extensive, meaning that you will be able to explore far more areas of Spain than would be possible with purely backpackers hostels

Finally, it is worth noting that Hostale in Spain does not mean hostel. Hostale is actually something between a hotel and a pensione - see the Bed and Breakfast section for more information. These are quite often the only option in smaller towns.

Bed and breakfast

There is little in the way of actual Bed and Breakfast accomodation in Spain. Instead the budget accomodation market is dominated by Hostales. These are a cross between a basic pensione and a small hotel (often only half-a-dozen rooms) on one of the floors of an apartment block. Price-wise these can prove extremely competitive, with even single rooms at prices to compete with youth hostels. It is a legal requirement in Spain for places offering accomodation to prominently display their tariff, so that it is easy to spot when you are being cheated. If this is the case you can ask register a complaint - there should be an official book with numbered pages to do this in.

The main downside of accomodation such is this is that it is not a good place to meet other travellers. If you are travelling alone staying in Hostales can be a very lonely experience. Also, they are not easy to book in advance, and Spanish is quite likely to be the only language spoken, so you may find yourself hunting around for anywhere to stay. Finally, by Northern European standards, hostales in Spain are often quite dated, and many of them seem dirty.

Hotels

Spain has the usual range of mid-market and expensive chain hotels, such as Best Westerns and Hiltons. The prices are kept down a little in many places by the number of budget options, so they may be quite a reasonable option if you cannot find anywhere else to stay, or feel like splashing out. Certainly you are more likely to be able to book in advance, find english-speaking staff, and find a bar with other english-speakers to talk to than in cheaper accomodation.

There is a network of Paradores, which are extremely expensive hotels run by the government. By all accounts the quality of these is generally stunning, and the locations could provide for an interesting break. If you stay in one of these, please tell us about it - they are a little beyond the price range of our reviewers.