Madrid hosts Spain's televised New Year's Eve grape-eating countdown at Puerta del Sol.
At midnight, many people in Spain try to eat one grape with each of the clock's twelve chimes. The twelve grapes are known as the “twelve grapes of luck,” and completing the sequence is associated with good fortune in the coming year. Madrid's Puerta del Sol is the best-known public setting for the countdown.
The square contains the clock whose chimes are broadcast across Spain. Large crowds gather there, while many households watch the ceremony on television and eat grapes at home. The custom is often linked to a surplus grape harvest in the early twentieth century, although its exact development involved earlier urban traditions and commercial promotion.
The grapes are eaten at the chimes, not simply during the final twelve seconds before midnight. This distinction matters because the bell sequence can be preceded by warning sounds and other clock signals.