The Three P’s of a Spanish Summer on the Coast

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Summer usually arrives overnight on the Spanish Costas.   One week the beaches will be dotted with
local residents enjoying the warmer weather, and then suddenly, one weekend,
you will find hundreds of tourists crammed together under a sea of umbrellas
and sun shades.   My sleepy little fishing village is half empty
for most of the year, but in July and August the population triples, as
families from Murcia and Madrid arrive to enjoy
their holiday homes.   

The locals have dubbed these interlopers the “tres P’s” because they come to the coast
to enjoy the three P’s:  playa, pipas y paseos.   

The playa part is not hard to understand.  The beaches of Spain are incredibly beautiful,
with clear waters filled with tropical fish.  I am always surprised when snorkelling to see
the numbers of tiny, colourful fish swimming around people’s ankles as they
paddle in the shallow waters, completely unaware of the busy lives being
carried out around their toes.  

‘Pipas’ refers to
sunflower seeds, which are particularly popular in Spain, especially with the older
generation.  They buy them in bulk bags,
and will sit for hours popping seeds into their mouths and spitting out the
shells.   It seems like a lot of effort to me to enjoy
such a tiny bit of food, but for the Madrilleños
it appears to be almost a hobby, and the streets and beaches become littered
with black and white striped husks.

The third P stands for paseo,
which means walking.  The Spanish will
spend hours walking the length of a beach and back, along the shoreline.  Some will walk with a great purpose, with
strong strides, and expecting everyone else to move out of their way, while
others will stroll casually back and forth, sharing gossip, and… expecting
everyone else to move out of their way.  The Spanish don’t like to move for
anyone.  Their pride will hold them to
their course, and for a Scottish woman like me, walking down a busy Spanish street can
sometimes feel like a game of chicken.

 I have an image of an
old, traditional Spanish woman visiting Japan
and striding down a street, with hundreds of well-mannered Japanese deferring
gracefully around her like the parting of the Red Sea.  I think she would feel she had died and gone to heaven!

More about the beach next week. . .