Some politicians are trying to curtail the country’s late-night activities and make it more like our boring 9-to-5.
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It was 2:15 a.m. on a Tuesday night in Cadiz, Spain, and hundreds of musicians were out in the local square, blowing full blast on bugles, trombones and tubas.
Another 50 musicians pounded on parade drums so loudly I could still hear them 10 blocks away, back inside our supposedly sound-proof hotel.
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They would keep making a beautiful racket like this every night for a week, sometimes until 4 a.m. But neighbours never complained.
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That’s because the whole neighbourhood was out in the square at 2 a.m., applauding the late-night spectacles: gaggles of Spanish grandmothers, kids of seven kicking soccer balls with dad, mothers holding swaddled infants, eager for them to glimpse their first spectacle.
Welcome to Santa Semana — Easter Holy Week, in Spain.
Here in famously lively Montreal, more and more residents are filing noise complaints that threaten and have even shut down some veteran Plateau music bars.
Even our city’s blowout jazz fest closes down at midnight, at very latest, as neighbours demand some silence. Increasingly, like many North Americans, we value our sleep and see nighttime noise as the enemy.
But Spain is a paradise for night owls like me, a place where almost anything goes, till anytime.
In fairness, Santa Semana is southern Spain’s biggest annual event. All week long, huge nightly religious processions stream noisily through the streets in a five-century-old tradition.
They’re fascinating to watch, featuring massive hundred-year-old floats with Easter scenes like a weeping Virgin Mary, or the Crucifixion, carried devoutly and laboriously by hand through every neighbourhood.
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Yet while these nightly midnight Easter processions are special occasions, they’re also symbolic of overall nightlife throughout Spain.
In countless cities from Barcelona to Madrid, Seville and Cadiz, you’ll see armies of Spaniards filling the streets and restaurants every night of the year, until 2 and even 4 a.m..
Many perch on outdoor barstools, even in 10-degree winter temperatures, downing rioja wine and chorizo tapas.
They’re warmed by outdoor space heaters glowing on almost every last restaurant terrasse in the country. That’s something I’d love to see more of in Montreal, to entice us outdoors more in our often chilly spring and fall.
Frankly, Spaniards make us supposedly hearty, late-night Quebecers seem like weather wimps and early birds.
Since COVID-19, many Montreal restaurants shut their kitchens at 8 p.m. and close by 9 for lack of staff.
But in Spain, most restaurants don’t even open until 8:30 p.m. and rarely fill before 10, when much of Europe is in bed. Food is served till 1 a.m., often later.
How do the Spanish deal with sleep? Many in southern Spain still take the traditional 2 p.m. siesta, when most shops (and schools) close for two or three hours, making it hard to buy even milk.
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Work restarts after siesta and often goes till 8 p.m., so dinner rarely starts before 8:30, except for ravenous tourists seeking an open pizza joint.
For night owls, Spain is late-night heaven: a buzzing sleepless place, alive with people of all ages, partying until they literally drop.
But even here the voices of early birds are chirping louder.
Some are pushing to have restaurants close at 10 p.m. so workers can get more sleep. The governing Socialist Party’s minister of labour, Yolanda Diaz, recently said she’d like to shift Spain to traditional European hours — and also pay night workers more.
She calls the country’s late-night culture “madness.”
“No reasonable country keeps its restaurants open until one in the morning,” she says.
But there’s massive, noisy opposition from prominent night owls, aghast at changing Spain’s nocturnal schedule. Among them: Madrid Mayor Isabelle Ayuso, who recently denounced the early birds, saying:
“They want us (Spaniards) to be puritans, materialists, socialists without soul, without light and without restaurants, Spain has the best nightlife in the world … but they want us bored and at home.”
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Similarly, “Hospitality Spain” tourist organization president José Luis Yzuel says nightlife is the reason why Spain is the third most-visited country in the world.
“Our Minister of Labour wants to turn us into a sad, gray country in Eastern Europe where everything is closed,” he adds. “Why do we have to be as bland as the Europeans when we are their envy in hospitality?’
Even for us night owls, it’s easy to see both sides of the picture: the love of a nightly city-wide party but the desire of some to sleep more and work less. Or at very least, get better pay for working past 10 p.m.
Whatever one’s feelings, it doesn’t seem the curtain will drop on Spanish late nightlife any time soon. I’ve been to several Spanish cities recently and all were crowded nightly until 2 a.m., and then later than I could last.
When I ask people how they like it, all say they wouldn’t change it for anything.
As we North Americans reportedly hit the sack earlier it looks like Spain will remain the night owl of the planet.
joshfreed49@gmail.com
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