Before you go to Spain: eras, customs, phrases and what is still there

Eras in a line

Before 1492 (15000 BC–1492) — For almost eight centuries the peninsula was shared, and fought over, by Muslim al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms of the north.
Empire and the colonial Americas (1492–1808) — Charles I (1516–56), also Holy Roman Emperor as Charles V, ruled Spain, the Netherlands, much of Italy and a growing American empire, and spent its silver on…
Revolutions and new nations (1808–1898) — From Napoleon's invasion in 1808 to the coup of Primo de Rivera in 1923, Spain lived through a war of independence, a liberal constitution written under siege…
Revolution, war and dictatorship (1898–1975) — The military rising of 18 July 1936 failed to take the whole country and became a three-year civil war, with German and Italian help for Franco's side and…
Democracy and today (1975–) — After Franco's death the king, the reformist prime minister Adolfo Suárez and the opposition negotiated a way from dictatorship to democracy without a break in…

The Spanish day — Five times to eat, lunch at half past two, dinner at ten, shops shut from two to five — and a clock that has run an hour ahead of the sun since 1940.
The year of fiestas — A calendar of Spain's great celebrations, each tied to its own town: grapes in Madrid, fire in Valencia, saints in Seville, bulls in Pamplona, towers in…
Tapas — Small plates eaten standing at the bar, one or two per bar before moving on.
Castells: human towers — A tower made of people, up to ten levels high, with a small child at the top who raises a hand while the whole square holds its breath.
The twelve grapes — At midnight on 31 December the whole country watches one clock and eats one grape per chime.
La hora latina: the elastic hour — An invitation for eight means you may arrive from eight.
La sobremesa — The plates are empty, nobody gets up, and the best part of the meal begins.
Who's last? The queue without a line — At the bakery there is no line, and yet everybody knows whose turn it is.
The two surnames — Everybody carries two surnames, one from each parent, and nobody changes their name on marrying.

En España se come y se cena más tarde que en casi toda Europa. — In Spain people have lunch and dinner later than almost anywhere else in Europe.
Hay que comer una uva con cada campanada. — You have to eat one grape with each chime.
Normalmente se come de pie, en la barra del bar. — People usually eat standing up, at the bar counter.
Los grupos que los hacen se llaman colles. — The groups that build them are called colles.
El 31 de diciembre se llama Nochevieja en España. — The 31st of December is called Nochevieja in Spain.
Si a usted lo invitan a una casa a las ocho y llega a las ocho, se encontrará con el anfitrión en pantuflas. — If you are invited to a house at eight and arrive at eight, you will find your host in slippers.

The painters of Altamira — At the Museo de Altamira in Cantabria you can enter the Neocueva, an exact copy of the cave, and look up at the red and yellow bison of the ceiling as the Stone Age painters left them.
Hannibal takes Saguntum — You can climb to the hilltop castle of Sagunto, near Valencia, and sit in its Roman theatre.
Augustus founds Mérida — In Mérida you can walk through the Roman theatre, amphitheatre, circus, aqueduct and bridge, and visit the National Museum of Roman Art. Every summer the Roman theatre hosts a classical theatre festival.
The Great Mosque of Córdoba is begun — In the Mezquita of Córdoba you walk through the forest of red-and-white arches, see al-Hakam II's mihrab with its mosaics, and find a Renaissance cathedral nave rising from the middle of the mosque.
The tomb of St James — You can visit the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, which stands over the tomb that Alfonso II marked with a church. You can walk the last stretch of the Way of St James into the city: the last hundred kilometres on foot earn the Compostela certificate. See the Camino.
Alfonso VI takes Toledo — You can visit the cathedral of Toledo, consecrated in 1086 on the site of the great mosque, in the old Visigothic capital.