Some curious things about Spain you may not know

Did you know Spain is the third most visited country in the world after France and United States? Barcelona is the most popular city having almost the double number of tourists than Madrid each year, but the most visited monument is not in Barcelona but in Granada and it is “La Alhambra”.

La Alumbra

Everyone knows the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest in the world, which is in part thanks to our excellent olive oil. Spain is the first (yes, the FIRST!!!) producer of olive oil in the world with 44% of the total production. It produces more than double Italy and four times more than Greece.

Speaking about food…did you know that Spain in one of the few countries in the world that produces saffron? It is actually 2nd to Iran, who are the biggest producers. This spice is also one of the main ingredients in the “paella” and why the rice is yellow instead of white.

And lets not forget our “vino”. Spain  is the 3rd largest wine producer and we drink an average of 38 litres of wine per year (which makes us the 9th country in the world when it comes to wine consumption). Also Spain has the most bars per capita in the world after Cyprus.

Do you know how Spanish people celebrate the new year? Here you go: every person in Spain eats twelve grapes for each bell strike of the clock. That is because according to the tradition if you are able to finish the twelve grapes on time you will have a prosperous year.

If you have been to Spain, or been invited to a Spanish home for lunch or dinner, you will have probably realised that we eat quite late compared to other countries. We also go to bed later than our European neighbours too and we sleep less hours on average.

Well, not everything is cultural if we take into account that when Franco was in power he decided to put our time one hour forward to be in symphony with Germany who had imposed (GMT +1) on all the occupied territories. Up until 1942 Spain followed (GMT+ 0), which is the time zone for England, Portugal and even the Canary Islands.

Do you know anything that Spaniards invented? Probably not! But I can tell you that such a thing as Chupa Chups comes from Spain! The brand was founded  in 1958 by  Enric Bernat and the name comes from the verb “chupar” which in Spanish means to lick!

Chupa Chups

Spain is a catholic country, but we don’t have many children – at least not anymore and you may be surprised to learn that Spain has one of the lowest average birth rates in the world.

And when a woman marries a man in Spain she does not take the surname of his husband but keeps her own. Also children have two surnames: the surname of the father and the surname of the mother. And both surnames are shown in all official documents.

Did you know these things about Spain?

Could you tell us some curious things about your country?

We are looking forward to learn about other countries too!