Where to park in Spain, city by city

Mountains and sea squeeze the city into one kilometre; beyond it, the clock rules.

The classic mistake is to keep driving in: at the end of the tongue of land is the sea.

Two ORA colours for two towns: blue inland, orange out by the sand.

Head for the Mezquita and you end up turning back: the parking is on the ring.

Four villages founded apart, and not one of them is the centre of the others.

In the Albaicín no sign stops you: retractable bollards do.

The pedestrian core keeps growing by roadworks; the regulated kerb is the ring left over.

A city on a slope: the flat half is regulated, the top half is walked.

Two peaks a year, one answer: the fairground and a shuttle bus.

The car stops at the frontier, and Gibraltar is reached on foot.

A pedestrian old town, SARE around it, and the beach setting the clock.

There isn’t one centre here, there are several in a row — the first choice is which one.

Beach and greenhouse share the roads in and none of the kerb.

Traffic for the capital crosses this island on a bypass; the kerb inside is local.

The river shares out the rules: zona azul downtown, badges only on the Cartuja.

Even owning a second home here is a category on the old town’s permit.

The height was settled in stone a century ago: the choice left is a level.

Wide streets nearly everywhere, and one filtered island: the Casco Histórico.

Under the arcades there is no kerb to read, and the landmark waits across the water.

Here you choose an economy before a parking space: beach or working port.

The capital, though not the region’s biggest city: you drive in for an errand.

Its biggest draw stands on the Oviedo–Gijón motorway, and those two cities fill it.

The village naming the municipality is its smallest: pick the resort before the street.

Dalt Vila is closed off twice, and from the flat you walk up.

The quay sits below the town and charges apart; above it the ORA runs all year.

ORA on the street, ACIRE and the ZBE in the centre, and the season ruling the beach.

Two different cameras, one on each bank: the permit changes as you cross the bridge.

The Saturday market can be planned for; the queue at the bridge into France cannot.

Blue under every regulated bay: the second colour is the one that times you.

Outsiders hunt the last two streets; here the edge already has names.

A hillside town above, a hotel strip below, and no habit crosses the descent.

Beach on one flank of the isthmus, port on the other, the rest strung out in line.

When the capital moved to the port, the grid and the university stayed.

The port, the Auditorio and the Intercambiador each brought ground; the spine did not.

Two water fronts facing opposite ways: the bay ahead, El Sardinero behind.

The cathedral’s apse is one of the wall’s towers; San Vicente was built outside it.

Catedral, promenade and museum run in line along the river; hospital and station do not.

The Casco Antiguo and the Barrio Húmedo are not painted, they are filmed.

The arcade runs down one flank of the Calle Mayor only: pick a side, not a street.

The ORA does not ask which street, it asks how long you are staying.

The old town has none to give: the campus, the hospital and the station do.

The Acueducto stands on the low ground, and everything you came for is above it.

What orders the centre is rotation; the long walk is the one to San Saturio.

Seat of the regional government without the title: offices and clinics decide.

The Romanesque is sown across the whole old town: you choose a way in, not a monument.

A grid and four colours: how long you stay decides, not how close you get.

One gate still standing remembers where the old town ended: the car stays on that side.

Two towns, one on the gorges and one on Carretería. Pick which before you set off.

People live here and work in Madrid; the paid line reaches the old town’s rim.

Three sides are shut by the Tagus; the fourth holds the gate and the car parks.

Nothing marks the city limit, and the verda only reaches the streets that ask for it.

The colour of the line rules here: àrea blava, àrea verda or a garage.

You can drive to the terminals without crossing one regulated street of the town.

Almost everyone who stops here is on the way elsewhere; only the fortress asks for time.

The houses stand in the water, so the ground for a car had to be built.

You park where somebody else arrived: the fair, the courts, the hospital campus.

Machines do the climbing; down on the flat, what varies is how long you may stay.

Everything from the Cardener up to La Seu climbs, and height decides where the car stops.

The perimeter that filters is the old wall, and its gates still carry the name.

You cross it by named rings, and each one changes the rule, not the distance.

The centre asks which car you brought; the kerb asks the clock — and it varies by area.

Old town, slope, estates and farmland: the regulated kerb is a small island.

Collserola is crossed from inside, and every district began as a halt.

Everything you came to see is below the railing, and the way back is what you pay.

The centre opens on a registered errand — or on a day pass, if you book one.

The calçotada loads the exit roads; the core fills for a castells diada.

The kerb is shared out by colour, and the long stay lives on the outside.

One name, two towns, and a railway between the old halves and the water.

One operator holds both the blue kerb and the covered ground, in a tiny centre.

Three calendars share the same streets: term, sightseeing and the Mercado Cervantino.

A motorway splits the town in two, so you pick a side before a street.

No paint on the ground, so the door decides: TresAguas, hospital, campus

Cobo Calleja fills with buyers from across Spain; the rest keeps its own pace.

Parquesur, the hospital, the campus and Butarque each keep a different clock.

The almendra decides: blue and green SER, garages as plan A in the centre.

A hospital serving a whole health area, and a centre that never had a carriageway.

Zielo, La Finca, Somosaguas and the Casco Histórico: each has its own way in.

The line with Alcobendas runs down Avenida de España, kerb by kerb.

The blue zone only circles Parque Europa; every other destination solved its own.

The city tried charging at the kerb, ended it, and now filters at one camera.

Crossing the arch grants no right to leave the car inside the wall.

A neck of land holding two seas: harbour on one side, Atlantic on the other.

Not every gate in the wall was ever widened for a car, and that is the border.

The thermal pools fill after dark, once the centre has emptied.

An old town closed by decision, and an edge made of scattered lots.

Pilgrims who never drove, term time and the Xunta: three clocks, never aligned.

Everything climbs away from the port: you park at the height you’ll walk.

The wall and the railway each freed a strip of centre, and both times it became garden.

You drive up to the walled enclosure, not into it; the grid beside it is driven whole.

Every year, while the fiestas last, the rule changes in almost every sector.

The ground here is already spoken for: the Navy, the ruins and the hills share it out.

One bay covers a whole morning of errands; outside, each stop brings its own ground.

The ordinance stopped naming streets and started naming drivers: the visitor comes last.

The centre can't widen, so the real choice is which stop you leave the car at.

Three colours, and hardly any is the visitor’s: here the street is the resident’s garage.

The sea sits apart: inside the ring space is fought over; out at el Grau there is room.

The Vinalopó barely carries water, yet it splits the city: pick the bank, then the space.

The beach fills and empties on train times, not on hotel check-outs.

Between two salt lagoons, a town that swells in summer over a base that lives here.

Blue and orange ORA, and pressure that moves: beach, stations, events.