Spain pre-research tips

[Esproquet]

After reading Barcelona blog, it came to my mind of having a Barcelona taxi in the game. This colour scheme is very characteristic and having a car like these around the city of Barcelona would make the game look very vivid and realistic.



It's not a big deal, it's just a regular car (Prius mostly) painted black with all the doors yellow (boot included) and a blue license plate (taxis and cars from companies like Uber or Cabify must have a blue license plate).



AMB = Àrea metropolitana de Barcelona


PS: In Barcelona, 1 out of 95 cars is a taxi.

[Some newbie driver]

One detail about the plate. The blue plate is for ANY vehicle working as taxi or VTC services in the whole country and ONLY the rear plate is blue.

[Esproquet]

ETS2 and ATS games are littered with many billboards and Easter Eggs, as a player I find them a really nice element of the landscapes of cities and roads, they have an unquestionable immersive value. Here's some ideas for SCS's designers to add to the game.

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IDEAS ON GASTRONOMY
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Spain is famous for its foody culture, it's the country in the world with the hightest number of restaurants or bars per inhabitant. You can go from one restaurant/bar to another and have different food in each place, you usually accompany it with a glass of wine or a caña (20 cl of beer, that's how little we drink here). You can order:
-Pinchos: a single/individual piece of food (sushi size, not generalised).
-Tapas: a small dish with a particular food (for one person).
-Raciones: a big dish to share with others.
-Caña: 20cl of beer (the standard size in Spain), you can double it (tanque) or half it (bolo). When you are in a big group, you ask for one or many jarras (1 liter jar).

When you enter a bar that you don't know the meny, you can approach the bar (not now, unfortunatelly under COVID19 restrictions) and usually ask for any tapa or ración from what you can see or take a seat and ask the menu and see the full list of products, some are already cooked, others need to be finished in the kitchen before serving.


There are festivals in which many restaurants or bars compete to create the best tapa, these competitions usually take place once or twice a year under the sponsorship of local governments or a big beer company. These are called Ruta de la Tapa and they are expected by foodies and regular people who just want to get a big deal for little money.









This is a standard menu of the ruta:


As you can see, it's something really generalised over the Spanish territories. People go, try the creations of the restaurants for a relatively low price (from 1,5€ to 2,5€, sometimes 3 or 4€ if it's a quality tapa) and then they can vote using an app, they can also fill a stamp card on every place they've been to and receive a nice treat if you manage to complete it.


Traditional products and food from Spain:


Pulpo a la gallega, from Galicia


Fabada, from Asturias


Jamón Serrano, especially good from Extremadura, Teruel and Granada



Merluza en salsa verde (hake in green sauce) big in Basque Country


Cocido, anywhere, but this is the Madrilenian variant


Paella, from Valencia (elsewhere is called rice with things instead)


Cochinillo (porc), from Castille


Rabo de toro (bull tail, literally), it was a delicatessen not so long ago, especially for bullfighting lovers.


Tortilla de patatas


Croquetas (what you do with the remnants of cocido)


Pescaíto frito & Calamares a la romana (Fried fish & squidfish), big in the south



Gambas al ajillo (gambs on soft garlic)


Gazpacho & Salmorejo, tomato soups from the south, really refreshing on summer days.


Migas, what people take on rainy days, it's made of fried bread crumps, garlic and anything you dare put (sausages, chorizo and peppers is the normal)


Patatas Bravas (hot potatoes), what people normally asks in a bar in the morning to take with a caña.


Montaditos, little sandwiches with many different ingredients and names


Pinchos, as stated earlier, single unit of food.


Butifarra, from Catalonia (also snails and mushrooms are big there).


Anxovies: from Cantabria


Patatas a la riojana, from La Rioja


Mojo Picón, from Canary Islands

Marinera, in Murcia, people love these (crusty russian salad with an anxovy on top), Murcia has some other interesting dishes.


Asiático (Asian Coffee), originary from Cartagena, they also have a kind of paella called caldero.


There are a lot of things you will find almost anywhere, but I think these are the most important. There are local variants

In Basque country tapas are called pintxos.

Food franchises:
100 montaditos
Lizarran
Pincho de Castilla
Gambrinus
....

[Esproquet]

There's an old Spanish saying that goes "Con pan y vino, se hace el camino" = "with cheese and bread, the road is made".

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DENOMINACIÓN DE ORIGEN PROTEGIDA (D.O.P) PROTECTED APPELLATION OF ORIGIN
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Manchego is probably one of the most known Spanish cheeses, Manchego means from La Mancha, but in the Americas some Mexican companies sell something that looks like cheese under Manchego name (it's actually somekind of mixed cheese, but they take it mostly from cows instead of sheep as the original one), they decided to name themselves as a Spanish DO. Therefore Manchego cheese corporation from La Mancha sued the Mexican companies for protected appellation of origin infringement. Apparently there's no such concept overseas, only brand recognition. The same thing happens with other products, true quality jamón serrano is named "IBÉRICO" (iberian), wine industry also has those issues.

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CHEESE
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Spain is not particularly green, there's not as many cows as in other countries, but we also get some nice cheeses from goats and sheep as well. Here's a simple map with the appellations of origins more famous:

This map only shows a small portion of cured cheese, there are other to make chees (fresh, i.e.).

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OLIVE OIL
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Same thing goes with the olive oil, the best olive oil from Spain must have a DO and the indication that it's ACEITE DE OLIVA VIRGEN EXTRA (extra virgin olive oil). These are some of the best regarded olive oil brands:


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JAMÓN IBÉRICO
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When jamón serrano is made with 100% pure-race pigs from Spain who are fed with acorns and grow up roaming freely on the mountains, it is called IBÉRICO (iberian ham). It's expensive to produce, it's quality is often measured by J (from jamón, ham), a top jamón is usually 5J (like a 5 star hotel) and they usually have their toes black (pata negra) as a distinctive feature. This one can easily cost 600-700€:

Best-known ibéricos are from Extremadura, Guijuelo (in South-West Castilla y León), Teruel, Huelva & Seville, Granada has its own variant of jamón (Trévelez).


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WINE
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Spain is traditionaly (or was) a wine country, but beer is cheaper and faster to produce so our current model of life promotes drinking more beer than wine, it also has less alcohol.



The most drank wines are, by DO (appellation of origin):

• Rioja (La Rioja, País Vasco, Navarra, Castilla y León)
• Ribera del Duero (Castilla y León)
• Valdepeñas & La Mancha (Castilla-La Mancha)
• Rueda (Castilla y León)
• Jumilla & Bullas (Murcia)
• Navarra (Navarra)
• Penedès (Cataluña)
• Cariñena (Aragón)
• Rías Baixas & Ribeiro (Galicia)
• Jerez & Manzanilla (Andalucía)

Also: the Spanish variant of the champagne is Cava (from Catalonia), and people in the north of Spain drink a lot of sidra (cider), especially in Asturias.

[Esproquet]

I hope you find something interesting to add in form of billboard or else.

PREHISTORY: Dinosaurs
====================
The Iberian Peninsula formed around 310 million years ago and the oldest dinosaur record is from 152 million years ago. There are a few museums devoted to dinosarus among other interesting sites with fossilized dino footsteps:

Dinópolis, a dinosaur theme park in Teruel
https://www.dinopolis.com


Museums
MUJA in Asturias region (near Gijón)
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Museo ... -5.2740996
MUPA in Castilla-La Mancha (Cuenca)
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Museo ... -2.1287667
Dinosaur Museum in Salas de los Infantes (Burgos, Castilla y León)
http://www.fundaciondinosaurioscyl.com/es/museo/?
There's also a Dinopark (as in the Czech Republic) in Algar, near Alicante.


PREHISTORY: Ancient men
======================
Approximately 800 000 years ago, the first humans entered the Iberian peninsula. The most famous sites are:

Atapuerca (Burgos, Castilla y León). The most important of them all.


Altamira caves (Cantabria). Modern men in Spain wall painting (as old as 35000 years)


Antequera Dolmens (Málaga, Andalucía), from Neolithic and Calcolithic.


Los Millares (Almería, Andalucía) one of the earliest cities and cultures/civilizations from Iberia (and Europe!). From 3200-2200 bC (Copper Age).

Scientist found in Almería interesting paintings and symbols on many caves (prior to Los Millares), these are INDALOS, and they are very proud of them:



Other sites:
-Las Cogotas (Ávila, Castilla y León)
-San Fornés (Mallorca, Islas Baleares)
-Cancho Roano (Badajoz, Extremadura)
-Numancia, Celtiberian town (Soria, Castilla y León)

What is the KINGDOM OF TARTESSOS? The Greek reported a kingdom in what today would be the southwest of the Iberian peninsula, apparently they had quite influence and traded a lot with Eastern Mediterranean civilisations. There's not much written evidence that support that, but it's fairly accepted that it was the first political entity of the region. By then there were Celts in the North-West of the peninsula that overrun ancient European peoples, and Iberian in the South and East. Central Iberia was a place where Iberian and Celts would fight and melt creating new languages and cultures (Celtiberians).

ANCIENT HISTORY
===============
With the arrival of Greek, Phoenitians and, later on, Carthaginian settlers, History begins. Iberian people received eastern influences that let them develop a writing system (3, actually). Phoenitians gave name to Spain (the land of rabbits) and Greeks to the peninsula. The most important IBERIAN ART is:

La Dama de Elche (Elche, Alicante, Comunitat Valenciana), but it's in a Museum in Madrid.


La Dama de Baza (Baza, Granada, Andalucía)


After the 1st Punic War of the 3rd century bC between Carthaginians and Romans) Carthage started to colonize southern and eastern Spain until Sagunto, where the limit of the Roman influence was established. Things start to speed up now, they found many actual cities on what would have been native Iberian settlements on the coast: Cádiz, Málaga, Cartagena, Alicante... the rest is war and destruction for Carthage after a nice Italian incursion transporting African elephants through the Pyrinees and the Alps accompanied with many Iberian & Celtic mercenaries.

Fun fact: they say Cartagena was founded over some Iberian settlement (Mastia, but again, not much evidence to support that thesis), it were the Carthaginians who founded and named the city after their metropolis: CARTHAGE founds NEW CARTHAGE because their harbours were similar, Carthage at the same time used to be a colony of the ill-fated phoenitian metropolis that didn't stand a chance against all those Minor Asian empires that conquered the area in succesive waves. Well, it happens that Carthage means NEW CITY, therefore, QART-HADAST (Cartagena) means something like NEW NEW CITY in Phoenitian. Later iterations were CARTAGO NOVA (roman), CARTAGO SPARTARIA (under Byzantinian Empire), CARTAYANNAT AL-HALFA (or just Cartayanna) during the Islamic period untill 1245 when it was baptised as Cartagena.

Now back to our History: IMPORTANT ROMAN CITIES:
-MÉRIDA: terribly beautiful, there's a circus, a theater, part of an aqueduct and an amphitheater.

-TARRAGONA, just gorgeous, probably the most important Roman city of Hispania.

The Romans created provinces (Tarraconensis (North), Lusitania (West) and Baetica (South), then Carthaginesis (southeast), Gallaecia (Galicia) and Ballearica (Balearic Islands). They ended up being overrun by many Germanic tribes in Iberia by the end of the 5th century, the Visigoths were the dominant one and they established their capital in Toledo.

MIDDLE AGES
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The Visigoth didn't last long, they asked North African tribes to get involved in their inner quarrels and eventually got conquered by them under the name of Islam.
IMPORTANT ISLAMIC CITIES

-CÓRDOBA (Medina Azahara, the Roman Ruins and the HUGE mosque).

-GRANADA (Alhambra and the Generalife under Sierra Nevada mountains)

Some visigoth retreated North and created the earliest medieval kingdoms and dynasties that eventually led to the foundations of Spain (and Portugal as a result). The first was Asturias, then it was renamed as León, then Castilla, then Navarra. There Francs established a March in the Northeast that conformed the catalan counties. Later on there was another kingdom, Aragón. Then, Portugal got independent from León. The rest is war between the Christian kingdoms when they weren't fighting the islamic caliphate under holy war. Long story short: by 1492 the Christians had conquered it all and continued to conquer overseas, joined kingdoms under marriage and conquered or annexed the rest (Navarra in 1520 and Portugal from 1580 to 1640).

IMPORTANT MEDIEVAL FIGURES:
El CID CAMPEADOR (in Burgos)


DON QUIJOTE DE LA MANCHA, not an historical character, but very important in Castilla-La Mancha, especially Toledo


MODERN TIMES
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Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, one of the most important of the world.



Museo Guggenheim in Bilbao


Museo Reina Sofía & Museo Thyssen in Madrid

Museo Dalí (Figueres, Girona, Catalonia)

Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (Valencia)

Modernist Architecture from Barcelona (Gaudí)

[Esproquet]

More ideas on possible ads/billboards next to roads or in cities.

Sports
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Top sports played in Spain are (ordered by federated players):
1- Football (by large)
2- Basketball, successful national selection.
3- Golf
4- Mountaineering & climbing
5- Judo
6- Handball
7- Tennis
8- Cycling
9- Athletics
10- Voylleyball

Other sports:
Ski is important in Granada (Sierra Nevada) and Northern Spain. The closest you get to the Pyrinees and the Leon mountains, the better. Madrid has some ski as well (Navacerrada station).


Sailing & Motorboats: anywhere in the coast.


Surf: in the Northern coast and southwest coast (Tarifa especially). Windsurf and kitesurf: the previous ones + Mar Menor, it has ideal conditions to practise these sports (the National High Performance Centre for water sports is in San Javier, coast of Mar Menor).


Rafting: Northern Spain, any city with a river, if there are rapids, much better!



Pelota vasca: this sport is big in basque country


There are some traditional sports, but maybe they are too special and not widely played.

[Louis trucker 33]

the colour of the panels of this type is similar to light blue as follows

HTML nomenclature :004ca3

[Esproquet]

Spain is well-known for the passionate way Spaniards run their fiestas and festivals, Hemmingway and Orson Welles gave testament of it.

Let's take a look on the most famous ones:

FIESTAS
=======
SAN FERMÍN (or SAN FERMINES). Pretty self explanatory, running ahead of bulls over the streets of Pamplona, every July (COVID forbid)



LAS FALLAS (Falles), every Spring in Valencia. They burn giant busts and statues, most of them are satirical. They also blow a huge amount of fireworks (la MASCLETÁ).



La TOMATINA, in Bunyol, Valencia. Exedent of tomatoes turned into a great party.



ROMERÍAS, Andalucian FERIAS, especially FERIA DE ABRIL in Sevilla, great horseriding, flamenco, drinking and eating. These people know how to live.

Seville

Murcia


MOROS & CRISTIANOS, in many cities, this is from Alicante



CARTAGINESES & ROMANOS, in many Mediterranean cities as well, those who do not celebrate Moors & Christians in particular, this is in Cartagena



CARNIVAL of CÁDIZ (Carnaval de Cádiz), I haven't seen so many funny guys together, they mock themselves, the politicians and anything that moves.



CARNIVAL of SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, they have a much better weather in the Canary Islands, so they can have a carnival like in Brazil (not as multitudinary though).



EASTER, SEMANA SANTA, it's the same and different everywhere.



The night of the museums, LA NOCHE DE LOS MUSEOS, in many cities, a celebration of culture and science


MUSIC
=====
VIÑA ROCK: Every spring in Viñarrobledo (Albacete, Castilla-La Mancha) a classic festival, focused mainly on rock music (some rap as well).


PRIMAVERA SOUND, every Spring in Barcelona. Pop, rock & alternative.


DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL, in Madrid, at the beginning of the Summer. Rock & Metal.


BILBAO BBK, every summer in Bilbao. A bit of everything.


SÓNAR, end of Spring in Barcelona. Electronic, technology & innovation blended with music.


There are many other festivals, sometimes sponsored by some beer company, sometimes by local or regional governments.

[Esproquet]

Main Theme Parks on Spain, on the map, from North to South: Salou (Tarragona), Madrid (one downtown and another one San Martín de la Vega), Benidorm (Alicante) & Sevilla.



Water Parks:
https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&bih= ... 999716],6]
They're missing AQUA NATURA in Murcia.

Some ideas (obviously there's no way to use these trademarks without copyright infringement):

[Esproquet]

The other day I was driving on RttBS and found out that in Mangalia you placed many military ships. Here's some info in case you want to-can use them in Spain:

Ejército de Tierra: regular land army
Armada: Navy
Ejército del Aire: air force
Infantería de Marina: the marine corps (the oldest in the world BTW)

There's also La Legión in the African cities and Almería (just a few km north of the city, huge base).

Link to wikipedia: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armada_Es ... _siglo_XXI

Main ARMADA bases:



FERROL, right next to the commercial port where nacelles and wind blades are stored. Not far from A Coruña (Galicia), FFG Frigates https://www.google.com/maps/search/muel ... a=!3m1!1e3

ROTA & LA CARRACA, near Cádiz (Andalucía), FFG Frigates & Amphibian assault ships (more than 1 class), disembark boats and patrol ships among others (...)

CARTAGENA (Murcia), you don't get to see the Arsenal from a truck perspective, you can see there submarines, mine layers and mine draggers, supply ships, sea patrols, the combat divers... What you see is truck-wise is La Curra dock, there's always supply-support Armada ships, and from time to time NATO squadrons there. Right next to the commercial (container) port. https://www.google.com/search?q=muelle+ ... e&ie=UTF-8

Also there are places where you can see army and air force bases, I don't know many but I recall making this trip from Huesca to Zaragoza and getting amazed by the amount of tanks near the road in a base near the city, it was 14 years ago, so I'm not sure if they're still in the same place.
https://www.google.com/maps/search/base ... a=!3m1!1e3

If you end up adding Ceuta or Melilla, those cities have plenty of military bases. An awful LOT.

Ejército del Aire: Air Force bases




Ejército de Tierra: Army bases