Partying in Spain- Party spot- Beach and Fiesta

Having spent a lot of time in Spain I occasionally get asked for advice of where to go. Recently I was asked for the best place in Spain to party and also laze by the beach.

The good news is that the Spanish really know how to party and are fun to party with. In Fiesta time there is an increased amount of partying in a country already in party mode.

One important piece of advice to give though about the Spanish partying habits is that they tend to go out very late like 12am onwards. It’s hard to fit into this time frame when you are not living their lifestyle and you are on holidays.They tend to keep themsleves occupied with other things until 9-10pm when they have their dinner and afterwards get ready to go out. I have often found myself too drunk to keep up the partying by 1am because you tend to drink more waiting for the famous Spanish party to start, considering that you have started drinking at 5pm.A good way to get to know Spanish people is to head into one of the town plazas where they have their “botellon” which is a piss up they have before going out, to save themselves the expensive drink prices inside the bars. This is becoming increasingly more difficult though, with new laws trying to stop this habit. Typical drinks drunk are Kalimotxo in the north (cheap red wine mixed with coca cola), rum and coke or wine and other mixers in the south.

Some great cities to party in are Madrid, Seville and Barcelona. But when it comes to beach and party Barcelona stands above the rest because it is the only one of the 3 aforementioned cities with beaches. Seville I found, while being a good party city, the parties are too spread out and therefore fewer possibilities in the one district, and a cab ride or a walk is necessary to go to another district.

It is important to note this because Spanish are great bar hoppers. Taking this fact into account I found the smaller cities like Alicante, Cadiz, San Sebastian, Santander, and Gijon awesome. They all have about 200-000- 300,000 inhabitants, but have all their bars in the smaller old town area. San Sebastian for example is said to have 100 bars in the small town, and from this city and Santander I derive my best experiences from bar hopping in Spain.

Other factors to draw you to these towns is that they are all beach towns, they have great parties, and are all amazingly stunning cities to visit.

the Moorish architecture of Cadiz overlooking a bay in the Atlantic Ocean

One of the last great memories of partying in Spain was in the old town of Gijon called Cimadavella. The local speciality is non bubbly cider and the bottles are 2 euros each for a 750ml bottle. They walk into the bar, buy a crate of cider and return to the square to share it with their friends. The square was an amazing place to meet people and have a lot of fun.

The best thing I can say is that wherever you are in Spain you should find a party, and have a great time and a great memory of Spain and it’s people.
Disfrutala! Enjoy!