Up late

(With apologies to nephew Nick who wrote a song of the same name).

We thought France was civilised because days start and finish late: parking meter restrictions don´t start until 0900 and break for lunch between 1200 and 1400, restaurants don´t start serving until 2000. Spain is even more suited to night owls like us - we can get out of bed at between 0800 and 0900, check our messages and mail and do the odd bit of washing or eat breakfast, start the morning activities as late as 1100 and still have 3 hours of sightseeing or whatever before lunch at 1400. Suits us fine.

When dusk falls at about 2100, it´s time to look for somewhere to eat an evening meal, and one might still be sitting in a square with a drink or the last stages of a meal close to midnight. And it´s a game the whole family plays - in Salamanca we were wondering whether we might have left it a bit late to find a restaurant still serving when we sat down at 2200 on our second night in Spain, but within a few minutes an extended family of a dozen people including a pre-teen and child of about two sat down at the next table. We recently made a one night stop at a modern hotel conveniently close to the motorway route from Granada to Barcelona, and again felt uncomfortable when we were the sole occupants of its large restaurant at 2130. By the time we left after a very good fixed price meal, it had a small crowd of other diners, including a family. Back at the parking meters, in Spain they don´t start until 1000, and also take a mid-afternoon break like the French ones do, but of varying length. They must have complex internal programs, as you can still put in money to cover the whole day, including the break, as we did in Toledo.