Leisure in Spanish Taverns

Since the Middle Ages, taverns were gathering places for ordinary people, where they shared wine, food, conversation and songs. People also played cards and dice, which explains why so many gambling laws mention these establishments.

A place under watch

The authorities saw taverns as places of brawling and betting. Many local regulations banned playing there for money or at certain times. We explore this in banned and censored cards.

Taverns in the Spanish Golden Age

The literature of the 16th and 17th centuries is full of taverns, inns and gambling dens where gamblers and soldiers played cards. Cervantes, Quevedo and picaresque novels portray them in detail. We look back at this in leisure in the Spanish Golden Age.

From tavern to bar

In the 20th century, taverns gradually gave way to bars, but the habit of playing cards endured. We explain this in why Spanish bars kept a pack of cards.

What remains

The card-table cloth, the well-worn pack and the same familiar faces. That’s the tradition we want to keep alive, without betting, at every table of Mus (card game) or Guiñote (card game).