IS THE SIESTA OUTDATED

Much of the year, especially during July and August, Spain’s towns are overwhelmed by tourists. To me, a northern European, it seems bizarre that for most of the afternoon they are ghost towns.

I recently went into my own town centre as I had a need to visit Correos. Apart from a few pavement cafés the only business open was the post office. My large tourist-based city had the appearance of town after a neutron bomb attack. The buildings were intact but otherwise there was just the occasional cat or person to be seen.

Sure, to ‘compensate’ most businesses open at 5 pm. Surprise! Surprise! Similar businesses, many tourist dependent and situated throughout Europe, are open through the afternoons and the evenings too.

The business community’s ears are closed to the mayor’s exhortations that they kick the siesta into touch. He has a point. The siesta is a throwback to life before tourism, fans and air conditioning. How can it be justified now?

A friend in the UK manages a substantial importing business. When new to the job she emailed me. She had a problem when calling a business in Spain. All she got was a recorded message, which she could not understand.

This recorded message explained the hours of opening. They were definitely not European hours. Mi amigo is under his sombrero enjoying his zzzzzzzzzzzzzs.

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If the shops and offices stayed open all day, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, that would mean more staff, more electricity etc. and probably no significant increase in sales, so a net loss.

Where increased hours leads to more sales then establishments do tend to provide extended hours of service.   

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Mike

This is Spain and they will almost certainly continue with the siesta. And why not? I for one would not want Spain to become like ghastly Britain! The supermarkets, at least the larger chains, are open through the day, as are the ubiquitous chinese emporea. You have lived here a while now, you should stop complaining. When I was in Ireland years ago the shops in the small towns were invariably shut just at the time I wanted to use them. Adapt and enjoy.

 

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Shopping centres do open all day. Most of them from 10am to 10pm and even later in some cases. However, in this heat, walking around a town would be unbearable which is why most of these close as shoppers simply do not want to trudge the streets in the heat of the day. Shopping centres are generally shady, airconditioned areas so not as bad.
The annoying bit are the banks and offices which generally have aircon but close as that's the way it's always been.
When we lived in Cyprus, the afternoon closing was only July and August which made a bit more sense.

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Macbernard, where did your comment "like ghastly Britain!" come from.  It seems to me that a lot of ex-pats feel the need to run down the UK to justify their current choice of location.

But getting back to the thread I reckon the siesta makes a lot of sense this time of year and I indulge a bit that way myself sometimes, which makes eating out late at night even more enjoyable.  But I'm not convinced that the siesta is justified for the rest of the year and what bobaol says about Cyprus seems more logical.

 

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The siesta is a Spanish years old way of life not some sort of throwback to anything, everybody in Spain knows to do shopping when the shops are open, easy.

If they nocked it on the head they might then start to close like most do in the UK at about 6pm, then to some in Spain that would be wrong. And as for a friend running importing,  she was new to the business, and couldn't understand the message, bet she does now if she wanted to get on, so whats the problem?

Spain isn't England, cant handle that fact stay away, easy.

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