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”.
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!
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!
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Spain is cool. Very interesting post!
It’s not a very big country and yet it has so much to offer!
Totally agree chicas!
Other great inventions “made in Spain” are the submarine by Isaac Peral, the mop or “fregona” in Spanish (it owes its name to the cleaning ladies), the CIGARETTE! (original from an old tobacco factory in Sevilla that took the idea of an old beggar who used some of their tobacco left overs to roll it in rice paper) and many others.
In terms of food, which is a very important part of our lives, Spain imported into Europe product such as cocoa, tomatoes, avocado and potatoes as well as tobacco.
Thank you for a very interesting post Andrea! 🙂
And what about the Spanish guitar?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNqtCsCqCD8
Oh Patricia!!!
This is one of my fav pieces! El maestro Rodrigo!!
Another great piece is “Entre dos Aguas” by Paco de Lucía. Here I leave my favourite version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oyhlad64-s
Sara ! That’s a hit in my Spanish lessons while students are calmy doing some writen activities ! I love it!
I love it too Patricia. He was just amazing! There’re many pieces played by Spanish guitar and it’s a great idea that we play them to our students! 🙂
This is a piece of music I’ve enjoyed for years. The architecture of the building in the video clip has many features similar to the Royal Palace in Seville as well as some other tourist sites there.
Hola Andrea, algunos hechos muy interesantes! Encantada a escuchar a la guitarra espanyol!
Qué interesante! Fui a Granada con Vamos el fin den semana pasado y me encanto mucho! Me recuerda de muchas maneras a mi país, Grecia…
Sin duda España es un país hermoso que tiene mucho que ofrecer!
Here is another curious thing: the name of the country, España (I Shpania) comes from the phoenicians and means island of rabbits” or ” land of rabbits”.
Check out this link and find some more interesting things you probably didn’t know about Spain.
http://www.huffingtonpost.es/2014/03/15/50-cosas-increibles-sobre-espana_n_4962505.html
I hope you like it!
More about the possible origin of España 🙂
http://www.abc.es/espana/20140829/abci-donde-procede-palabra-espana-201408281811.html
Muchas gracias por los links, Chris y Susana. I found the information very interesting. I didn´t know it used to be so many rabbits in Spain to be the responsible of the name of the country! 🙂