Spain is made of several regions. That led  to the creation of a lot of national celebrating days. There are the National Days, and also the Autonomous Communities days.

So there are the national ones :

• ·      Año Nuevo
• ·      Día de Reyes / Epifanía del Señor
• ·      Jueves Santo
• ·      Viernes Santo
• ·      Día del Trabajador
• ·      Asunción
• ·      Fiesta Nacional de España
• ·      Día de todos los Santos
• ·      Día de la Constitución
• ·      Inmaculada Concepción
• ·      Navidad
• ·      Sant Esteve 

We can see that there is a lot of Catholic celebrations, because we know that Spain is a Catholic country, and that Spanish people are very religious.

 And then, there are the celebrations in the Autonomous Communities. We have for exemple :

• ·      Dia de les Illes Balears                           1 mars
• ·      Día de Andalucía                                    28 fevrier
• ·      Fiesta de la Comunidad de Madrid         2 mai
• ·      Día de las Canarias                                30 mai
• ·      San José                                                19 Mars

During these celebrations we can find a lot of traditions. A battle of tomato for exemple in Brunol at the end of every summer, or a bull race in the streets of Pampelune during the San Fermín celebrations.

Everytime it is always huge celebrations and very impressive.

Tomatina

Bull race 

CUSTOMS

Religion

Spain is known as a very reliogious country, and more precisely as a catholic country. 94% of the Spanish people said that they were catholic. But in reality they are more « catholic by culture ». They have been baptized, but they don’t go to church every Sunday, or don’t have a real faith. We can also find small comunities of muslims (1 million in Spain), Protestants, or Jews.

 Rhythm of life

Spain has also a very specific rhythm of life. Their journey have two parts : the morning (8h – 13h), and the afternoon (16h – 20h). This rhythm is less marked in the big cities like Madrid, or Barcelone, but it is still very present in Spain. (You can find everything about this in my blog in the article « Rhythm of Life »)

Cooking  

It is difficult to sum up all the culinary tradition in Spain, because of its huge diversity. But I am going to talk about « Tapas » that is one of the most important culinary tradition in Spain. 

Some people say that originally, tapas were created by king to avoid alcoholism. The aim was to eat something with your glass of wine to be less alcohol effects. Then, some other people say that it has been created to avoid that flies fall in your glass of wine. They put olive in a small plate that they put on your glass of wine.

Anyway, today around 9 or 10 PM people are going out in the street, and in the bars and drink a beer or a Sangria and eat ham, small sandwiches, chorizo, mushroom, and olives with it.

During my semester I had the opportunity to see how the mom in a family was cooking and I have been really impressed. She was always doing huge meal with meat, feculent, and vegetables. She often spent hours in the kitchen.

"Siesta"

Another tradition is the « siesta ». During the summer, people get up early to work when the temperature is still bearable, and then, it is so warm between 2 and 4 PM, that spanish people try no to go out. And then, during this time they are doing a « siesta », they are sleeping.  

Today it is mostly visible in the provinces.