Bank holidays cause commercial chaos and carnage in Spain.

Most Brits will be accustomed to UK bank holidays which generally serve to form a relaxing long weekend, and on which it can be relied upon that stores will open, restaurants will still be serving food, and life generally runs as usual, except that most of the population doesn´t need to go to work – fabulous!

When I heard about all the holidays in Spain, it sounded like such fun and a genuine reason (excuse!) to fully immerse myself into the Spanish system fiesta-style. Mmmm, not quite.

Firstly, not only are we treated to the customary national holidays, but we also have a whole series of regional and local holidays that we are expected to observe. In fact, someone once told me that there are only about 7 weekdays in the calendar year when the whole of the country is actually at work!

Secondly, the system is somewhat open to abuse. For example, the main shopping mall in Marbella, La Canada, is closed today as it´s a national holiday here in Spain – fair enough. However, the mall is also closed next Monday (I think, but more of that later) as it´s the feria in San Pedro, the neighbouring town. This is where it gets complicated. You would expect La Canada to be closed on the days of Marbella´s holidays, but the only reason the centre is shut to the public next Monday is because its owner lives in San Pedro. He´ll be partying, so he´s going to shut his business, despite its location. My friends who work in a school in Marbella will be going to work next Monday, but although their son´s nursery is located opposite the school (in Marbella), one of them will have to throw a ´sickie´ to care for their 2 year old as the nursery will be shut to allow the workers to go to San Pedro to indulge in the festivities!

They take their holidays very seriously here in Spain – in fact, it has been known for snatch squads from the Guardia Civil to drop in on unsuspecting businesses to catch them working when they should be having fun – that´s right, on the national holiday that is ´Worker´s Day´, if you are found to be working (even checking emails in the office before going to join in the fun), you can be fined and closed down – you have no choice.

The main problem that I encounter is the lack of communication in announcing opening hours. To go back to La Canada shopping mall, none of the workers in its (very large) gymnasium could tell me last Friday if the mall would be opening today, Monday. They simply hadn´t been told. Then somebody guessed that the mall would be shut, but it may open on Sunday in lieu. No announcement, no nothing. But sure enough, there it was, open to the public all day Sunday instead. I can only guess what the takings were if everybody presumed it was closed. Indeed, I took the opportunity (well, I actually guessed that it would be open) to do my weekly shop in the supermarket. When I arrived at 3pm, mine was the only car in the car park.

Strange.