Communications in Spain
Telephone calls in Spain
In order to make telephone calls in Spain it is preferable to use pay phone cabins and toll booths called "Telefonica", which are considerably cheaper than calling from your hotel room. Making telephone calls in Spain calling from the hotel is 15% more expensive than from the street. Phone calls in Spain before 8:00AM and after 10:00PM are 15% cheaper. Prepaid phone cards "Tarjeta telefonica" can be purchased at any hotel in Spain or any tobacco kiosk. The cheapest solution for telephone calls in Spain is to use a "prepaid card" of several different kinds, which usually cost less than 10 Euros and have a relatively large price span per minute. A cell phone in Spain can be rented.
For international calls you need to dial 07, wait for the beep, dial the country code, the city code, and afterwards you can safely dial the number you actually wish to call.
Useful numbers:
- Police, medical emergency, fire department – 112
- State police – 095
- Local police – 092
- National guard – 062
- Medical emergency - 061
- Sea lifeguards – 900-202-202
- Fire department - 800
Postal Service in Spain
The postal service in Spain (correos) works from 9:00AM till 2:00PM Monday through Friday, and from 9:00AM till 1:00PM every Saturday. Stamps can be purchased at any tobacco kiosk (estanco). Post office boxes belonging to the postal service in Spain are painted with bright yellow color. Sometimes you will see special PO boxes for letters that are being sent to international destinations.
Mail is delivered by the postal service in Spain once a day. Smaller packages are delivered to the residences of the recipients, while the larger packages must be picked up in person. Do not forget to grab the post office delivery notice and some identification document, such as a passport.
Internet in Spain
The possibility of access to internet in Spain is available at virtually any hotel, library, cultural center, as well as at negotiation points called Locu-torio. Almost every more or less large city has plenty of internet cafes providing internet in Spain, however, their services are hardly among the cheapest. A few years ago the authorities of certain regions in Spain (especially in the North) made the legal status of internet cafes comparable to that of casinos, following which, many of the internet cafes closed down, due to bankruptcy, and inability to meet all the stringent new administrative and legal requirements for proving access to internet in Spain.
