A lot of businesses close for part or all of the month of August in Spain. The streets are empty as the Spanish head elsewhere (although, I am not quite sure where). As I walked down the streets, easily 1 in 10 businesses were closed for Summer holidays, with at least an additional 1 in 10 offering reduced hours – usually no hours on Saturday, but some go further and only are open mornings.

All sorts of businesses close down: stationary shops, restaurants, bars (cerverceria), hair salons, tobacconists, toy shops, reality agents, food stores, lawyers, opticians, etc.

Here are some notices I snapped in Valencia:

“We are on Holidays!!!!” - Restaurant

“We are rested. Stop. Returning August 30th. Stop. Greetings to all.” – Hair salon (at least they were creative).

“Closed for Holidays” – Furniture Store

“During the month of August”

“Closed on Saturdays”

“Sorry for the inconvenience” - Optician

“Schedule” – Stationary Shop

“Closed from the 4th until 29th of August” – Toy shop

“Returning the 6th of September. Happy Summer” – Ice Cream Parlour

Comments

erik

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I wish I could close up shop for a whole month!

Tuesday 31 August 2010, 23:51

richard

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The Spanish tendency to not working is something that takes a bit of getting used to.

In addition to taking, generally, taking the month of August off, they also break every day between 14:00 and 17:00 for siesta. A time when many shops and businesses close up and bars and restaurants open. Afterwards, they go back to work from 17:00 to 20:30. Eat dinner around 22:00 and go to bed around midnight.

Big stores and malls stay open, but the smaller shops (and there are a lot of them) tend to close up.

Wednesday 01 September 2010, 15:59

mattbg

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Does Walmart close for siesta, too?

(or any of the big chains)

Thursday 09 September 2010, 12:35

richard

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I haven't seen a Walmart here, but major stores, chains and malls do not close for Siesta.

With other businesses it is dependent on whether they are located within large stores or malls or not.

For example, most post offices close for siesta. However, if the post office is inside a large mall / store then it remains open.

Restaurants are particularily annoying. They tend to be open between 14:00 and 17:00, then 20:00 until 01:00. Trying to eat outside those hours at anything that isn't a Burger King (far more popular than McDonald's) or Hollywood's is really, really hard.

Pharmacies tend to be open 12 hours from 09:00 until 21:00. The so called "Chinese" stores (probably the closest equivalent to a Dollar store) tend to be open (and tend to be operated by Chinese).

Saturday 11 September 2010, 06:01

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