what to wear?
 

We leave Friday for 2 weeks - Barcelona, the north and Madrid. What are the fashionable folks wearing to dinner? Do I need a dress, does my husband need a jacket for the nicer restaurants? How about the tapas bars???

While I did not attend any fine (i.e. expensive) establishments while in Barcelona, I did make one interesting observation.

Everyone, I mean EVERYONE wears jeans! Take it for what its worth...I'm sure you'd be better off with slacks and a jacket at the nicer restaurants, but that is what I noticed...and not just amongst the youngins', but all ages seemed to be wearing jeans. There you have it..have a great time.

I do not mean to sound rude, but really wear whatever you feel comfortable in. During the day I saw people in jeans, shorts, skirts , sundresses whatever you would wear on any holiday. At night I tended to wear dresses and did not dress casually to eat out at the more formal places. Tapas bars are just that, bars, so people wear what you would wear to a bar in North America. So what you choose to wear is a very personal thing but having been this July and reading post from others who wanted to know what to wear and having read some of the advice , I would like to reassure you that people in Spain dressed as they would here , depending on the weather and where they were going and the time of day. I would not wear shorts in the evenings, but I would not go out for supper in Canada in shorts either. If you tend to be a casual dresser you will not feel out of place and if you tend to be more sophiticated you will be ok as well.As for people who in previous posts said to avoid sneakers which I left at home, I can tell you I saw tons of people in sneakers and shorts , especially in the 32+C heat we had and after walking around for days on end,I missed my Nikes.The one thing you can leave at home is a baseball cap.Your husband should take a sports jacket to wear to the really gourmet restarants but we only did this twice,however my husband did wear his jacket on both these occasions and if he had not he would likely have been the only one there without a jacket.At most places however a nice polo type shirt and dress pants or a nice formal shirt short or long sleeves depending on weather was fine, no ties necessary.I took 2 nice dresses and 1 pair of heels to match all 3 to wear at night and this worked great. Again I do not mean to be flip about this but really europeans dressed no differntly than we do here so I do not think you need to worry.Have a great trip.

When I'm dressing to impress in Europe, I always make sure the ragged edges of my cut-off blue jean shorts are are less than three inches long. At night, you might want to wear black socks with your orange sandals and save the white knee socks for daytime.

Geez. Now I have to repack, again, and put back what I wanted to wear before I was chastised for being too informal. Black socks are so much more comfy than pantyhose! Grandmas unite in comfort! (Promise not to roll down my knee highs.)