Madrid plays host to Europe’s parties
In Madrid, the real party starts at 11 p.m. after the bars close — and curfew kicks in.
That’s when young, polyglot groups of revelers from Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and, most noticeably, France, join their Spanish contemporaries in Old Madrid’s narrow streets to seek illicit fun. Most are in their early 20s, eager to party in the Spanish capital like they haven’t been able to do for months at home under strict lockdowns.
Oasis of fun
With its policy of open bars and restaurants — indoors and outdoors — and by keeping museums and theaters running even when outbreaks have strained hospitals, Madrid has built a reputation as an oasis of fun in Europe’s desert of restrictions.
Other Spanish regions have a stricter approach to entertainment. Even sunny coastal resorts offer a limited range of options for the few visitors that started to arrive, coinciding with Easter week, amid a set of contradictory European travel rules.
“It’s a real privilege for me to go into bars because in France you can’t. Here I can go to restaurants, share time with friends outside of home, discover the city,” Romy Karel said. The 20-year-old Berliner flew to Madrid last Thursday from Bordeaux, the southern French city where she’s studying social sciences.
“I can’t remember when was the last time I did this,” she said.
The visitors are bringing some vital business to locals and giving politicians much to debate about before a polarized regional election. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the regional president of Madrid who is running for reelection, is trying to attract votes beyond her conservative supporters by campaigning under the slogan of “freedom.”
Outside the capital, efforts to jumpstart tourism are drawing mixed results. In part, that’s due to a patchwork of rules at regional, national and even European levels that curb domestic nonessential travel in many countries while leaving a loophole for those seeking a Spanish holiday.
Trips from Germany
Although Germany has banned all domestic tourism and discouraged travel abroad, the government allows trips to Spain’s Balearic Islands, which have a low infection rate. Bookings of flights and hotels followed even though many were disappointed to find on arrival that bars and restaurants were shut at night.
“In Germany, we have so many rules that coming here feels like freedom,” said Marius Hoffman, 18, shortly after he landed in the archipelago’s capital, Palma de Mallorca, this past weekend.
David Stock, another German traveler who visited Granada’s famed Alhambra complex this week, acknowledged the paradox of his government’s rules combined with Spain’s embracing of tourists.
“There are strange rules everywhere these days,” Stock said.
In France, hard-hit regions are curtailing free movement to a 10-kilometer (roughly six-mile) radius from home. Together with the nationwide nighttime curfew and the total closure of bars and restaurants since last October, it’s proving too much for many, who look south for excitement.
France now accounts for one-fifth of all incoming flights to Madrid, while cellphone roaming data analysis has shown an increasing uptick of French mobiles in the Spanish capital since January — peaking around weekends.
When curfew begins, many of the fun-seekers head for underground gatherings advertised via messaging groups. Others recruit fellow party animals on their way back to their rented Airbnbs.