Persianas

"What is a persiana," you ask?

  It's a heavy-duty windowshade, and one of our very favorite Spanish inventions.

Here is a typical Spanish window. The window has two panes that swing open to the inside.

The persiana (pronounced PEAR-SEE-ANA) is a shade that drops down on the outside of the window.

Most homes in Spain, ours included, do not have air conditioning. Summer temperatures often reach into the hundreds. Persianas are used to shade the house and help keep temperatures inside bearable. If you want to block the sun, but still allow for circulation, you can put the persiana down partway. The holes in the persiana allow for airflow.

If you want to take a nap in the middle of the day, or if you want to sleep in in the morning, you put the persiana all the way down, and it completely blacks out the room.

Here is the persiana from the outside of the house:

Driving around town at any given time most of the windows on the houses look like the picture below. It takes some getting used to to not be able to see the windows on the houses - it looks kind of like a town that is boarded up and ready for a hurricane.

Persianas are generally all closed when no one is home to

 help insulate the house and protect against intruders.