The New Year’s Eve tradition of eating 12 grapes at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol clock is especially associated with Spain.
At midnight, people try to eat one grape with each of the twelve chimes from the clock at the Real Casa de Correos in Puerta del Sol. The Madrid ceremony is broadcast nationally, allowing households throughout Spain to synchronize their celebrations with the capital’s clock.
The grapes symbolize the twelve months ahead and are popularly called grapes of luck. The practice is now a familiar part of Spanish New Year’s Eve, whether people gather in Madrid, watch television at home, or use a local clock in another town.
Puerta del Sol is also an important geographic reference in the Spanish capital. Visitors sometimes confuse the ceremony with the general Spanish custom, but Madrid’s clock is the nationally prominent broadcast setting rather than the only place where the grapes are eaten.