Costó aparcar cerca del restaurante porque había mucha gente en la zona peatonal.

In Spanish, costar can mean both:

• to cost in the money sense
• to be difficult / to take effort

With an infinitive, it often means to be hard to do something:

• Costó aparcar = It was hard to park
• Me cuesta levantarme temprano = It’s hard for me to get up early

So in this sentence, costó is not about price; it expresses difficulty.

After costar in this meaning, Spanish normally uses an infinitive:

• Costó aparcar
• Cuesta entenderlo
• Me costó encontrar la calle

Spanish does not usually use the gerund here the way English sometimes uses -ing forms. So aparcar is the natural form after costó.

Costó is the preterite, which presents the difficulty as a completed event: at that time, parking was difficult.

• Costó aparcar = it was difficult to park (in that specific situation)

If you said costaba aparcar, it would sound more like a repeated, ongoing, or descriptive situation:

• En esa zona costaba aparcar = In that area, parking used to be difficult / was difficult in general

So costó fits a single completed situation better.

Spanish often leaves out a subject where English uses it. In Costó aparcar, the whole idea of aparcar acts like the thing that was difficult.

You can think of it as:

• Aparcar costó
• more naturally: Costó aparcar

English needs it in It was hard to park, but Spanish does not need an equivalent subject pronoun here.

Yes, aparcar is very common in Spain for to park a car.

In many Latin American countries, people more often say:

• estacionar
• sometimes parquear in some regions

So for Spanish from Spain, aparcar is a very natural choice.

Because cerca is followed by de:

• cerca de la estación
• cerca de mi casa
• cerca del restaurante

Here, de + el contracts to del:

• de el restaurante → del restaurante

So cerca del restaurante is the correct form.

Because haber is used to say that something exists / there is / there are.

• Había mucha gente = There were a lot of people

Estar is used more for location or state, not for simple existence in this structure. So:

• Había mucha gente en la zona = There were a lot of people in the area

is correct, while estaba mucha gente is not natural here.

Había is the imperfect of haber, and it is very often used to describe background circumstances:

• había mucha gente
• hacía calor
• era tarde

Here, the crowd is the background situation explaining why parking was difficult.

If you said hubo mucha gente, that would sound more like there was a large turnout / there ended up being a lot of people, focusing more on the event itself rather than the background description.

Because gente is grammatically singular in Spanish, even though it refers to many people.

So you say:

• mucha gente
• la gente estaba cansada

not:

• mucha gentes
• la gente estaban cansadas

This is a very common difference from English. Gente is a collective singular noun.

Yes, absolutely.

• Había mucha gente = very natural, common, general
• Había muchas personas = also correct, slightly more literal/formal

In everyday speech, mucha gente is usually more idiomatic.

Peatonal means pedestrian.

So zona peatonal is:

• a pedestrian area
• a traffic-restricted area for people on foot
• an area where cars may be limited or not allowed

In Spain, this is a very common expression in towns and city centres.

Porque means because and introduces the cause or explanation:

• Costó aparcar... porque había mucha gente...

It answers the question why was it difficult?

Be careful not to confuse it with:

• por qué = why?
• porque = because
• el porqué = the reason

Yes. Fue difícil aparcar cerca del restaurante is completely natural and means almost the same thing.

The difference is mainly style:

• Costó aparcar emphasizes the effort or difficulty involved
• Fue difícil aparcar simply states that it was difficult

Both are correct, but costó aparcar feels a bit more dynamic and idiomatic in this context.