For a people with a sweet tooth the Spanish are short on sweets. Or at least variety in sweets. You won’t find much in the way of Bavarian flights of sugary fancy, or French panache in pastry. The Italians surpass the Spanish in confectionery. Even the English are more imaginative with their traditional sweet trolley. You will see candy shops every few blocks in the major cities, and they all handle the same wares: mostly hard candies individually wrapped and stacked with bricklayer’s symmetry in display cases. They almost look like building materials. But the candies ate for kids, for the most part. And their doting parents buy then far too much. In upmarket neighbourhoods and cities closer to France and Italy you’ll find more confections, and pastry shops are increasing in number as Spain enters the European mainstream. But these are not representative of the culture as a whole, and little in part.