Destination Guides & Maps - Spain

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Capital City: Madrid. Population 3.5 million

Major Cities: Barcelona, Valencia

Currency: The Euro; formerly the Spanish peseta.

Language: Castilian (generally known as Spanish), as well as regional languages in Galicia (Galician), the Basque Lands (Basque), Catalunya (Catalan).

Population: 39,644,000

Area: 504,780 sq km

Visa: No visas are necessary for EU nationals staying a maximum of three months.

Geography: Spain consists of the Spanish mainland, which occupies most of the Iberian peninsula (Portugal has the south-western edge), the Balearic islands (Ibiza, Formentera, Mallorca and Menorca) in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands (La Palma, Tenerife, Gomera, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Hierro) in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco.

The Iberian peninsula is divided from the rest of continental Europe by the Pyrenees. Mainland Spain is very mountainous - about one sixth of the country is more than 1,000m above sea level.

The centre of Spain forms an immense meseta or plateau, which stretches from the Cantabrian mountains in the north to the Sierra Morena in the south.

It is the fourth-largest country in Europe (after Russia, the Ukraine and France) and spreads from the Bay of Biscay - an arm of the Atlantic Ocean - in the northwest to the Strait of Gibraltar in the southeast.

The major rivers are the Ebro, Guadlaquivir, Júcar, Tajo, Duero, and Guadiana.

Religion: Predominantly Roman Catholic, with pockets of Protestants, Muslims and a small Jewish population (mainly from Morocco). There are also estimated to be around 500,000 Roma (gypsies), mainly in the bigger cities.

Time: Central European Time, GMT + 1 hour. GMT+ 2 hours from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.

Electricity: The current in Spain is 220V 50hz. North American appliances will require an adaptor, and UK plugs will need a 2-pin adaptor, easily available in most towns. A tiny handful of the older hotels and hostels still have 125V circuits, which means some electronic equipment (including laptops) won't work.

Emergency numbers (dial toll-free from any phone):

Emergency services Tel: 112

Ambulance/Ambulancia Tel: 061

Fire service/Bombers/Bomberos Tel: 080

National Police/Policia Nacional Tel: 091 (for serious trouble)

Municipal Police/Policia Municipal Tel: 092 (for larger towns and cities)

Civil Guard/Guardia Civil Tel: 062 (for smaller towns and villages)

Telephone: The main telephone operator is the formerly state-owned company Telefónica, who still retain the monopoly on local calls.

Most public payphones will accept coins and pre-paid telephone cards: most newsagents, post offices and tobacconists sell pre-paid Telefónica cards in denominations of €6, €12 and €30. Calls are cheaper after 8pm during the week and all day at weekends. Phones in bars and cafés usually have more expensive rates than public payphones.

To make an international call from Spain, dial 00, wait until the tone changes to a higher pitch, and then add the country code (UK 44; USA 1; Australia 61; Canada 1; Irish Republic 353; New Zealand 64) and the rest of the telephone number minus the first zero if there is one. To call Spain from abroad, the country code is 00 34.

Within Spain, all telephone numbers must be dialled in full, including the city code, even if you are calling a number in the same city.

Post Offices (Correos): Post offices are often very grand (particularly in Madrid) and are marked with a sign saying Correos. Sadly, the reputation of the Spanish postal service does not live up the architecture of its offices, and is notoriously unreliable.

Don't post anything valuable or important unless you have to, and even then send it via the Postal Exprés system, which is available at all post offices and guarantees next-day delivery to provincial capitals and 48-hour delivery elsewhere in Spain.

Postboxes, marked Correos y Telégrafos, are yellow. Most tobacconists (estancos, marked with a brown and yellow symbol) sell stamps (sellos).

Business hours: The normal opening hours for shops are Monday to Saturday from around 9am or 10am until about 1.30pm and then reopen from around 4pm until 8pm or 9pm. Large chain stores, department stores and shopping malls will usually open all day. Most shops, including the supermarkets, close on Sundays.

August is the traditional time for shop owners and employees to take their annual holidays and many businesses - including restaurants - are closed for this period.

Most museums are closed on Monday (or occasionally Tuesday), and are open on Sunday mornings only. Hours change with the seasons, and the official hours you will see pinned to the door of smaller museums should be treated as a very general guide.

Several of the larger museums, such as the Prado in Madrid, have late opening nights during the week. Most museums are closed on national holidays.

Banks generally open from 9am to 2pm from Monday to Friday, and from 9am to midday or 1pm on Saturday (although in some regions there's no Saturday opening in the summer).

Spanish pharmacies (farmacías) are identified by a neon green cross, lit when open. They co-ordinate their days and hours of closure so there is always somewhere to buy medication, and details of the nearest pharmacy on night or weekend duty will be posted on any pharmacy door.

Internet and e-mail: Every large town and city will have at least a couple of cybercafés; the internet has really taken off here and prices are usually very reasonable.

Coin-operated internet machines can be found in the tourist information offices, train stations and shopping malls of most large cities.

Like the UK, some of the telephone companies are introducing payphones that incorporate an internet/e-mail facility, but these are so far limited to the very big cities such as Madrid and Barcelona.

Tipping: Taxi drivers should be tipped about 5-10 per cent of the amount marked on the meter. Hotel porters should be given €0.60-1.20 for each item of baggage they carry to your room on arrival.

Spanish people rarely tip in restaurants or bars, but they will leave a few coins from the change, rarely more than €3. Tourists are generally expected to leave a bit more - count on leaving about 10 per cent in restaurants.

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