Pub Guide

Spanish Bars
It’s always thirsty weather on the Costa Tropical, which is why there is usually a pub or a bar of some kind within twenty paces of wherever you happen to be standing at any given moment.
Bars in Spain are not the same as bars in the rest of Europe. Broadly speaking there are two types of bars here: tapas bars and late pubs. The former usually sell food, and give free tapas (snacks) with drinks.
Foreigners are often shocked to see young children in Spanish bars late at night. But this is quite normal in Spain, where the distinction between day and night isn’t as important as it is in other countries, and where bars have traditionally been places where families meet up and neighbours socialize. Spanish pubs – especially in small towns – function almost as community centres. What foreigners also tend to forget is that Spaniards never sleep! Well, apart from taking a little siesta in the afternoon, while all the visiting Englishmen (not to mention mad dogs) are out in the hot midday sun getting burned to a crisp.
Late bars don’t open until around 10pm, and only begin to fill up with people at midnight, closing at three or four in the morning (many people then go on to night-clubs). Very few Spaniards go out before midnight during the summer months, and it is not unusual to see bleary-eyed revellers rolling out of all-night clubs into the bright morning sunshine.