[Funes-]

>Germans take a 1 hour lunch from 12-1pm. Spaniards have a later lunch, starting around 1pm, and going on until 4 or 5pm. This could possibly be due to the tradition of afternoon siesta.

This is not only untrue, but I would argue it also borders on being defamatory, consciously or not. Lunch breaks are typically one to two hours long in Spain, not three to four hours long--that's ridiculous. What the author is describing there would better fit what we tend to do during weekends, where "sobremesa" (coffee and drinks after we're done with the main dishes) can admittedly get a bit out of hand, but absolutely not on working days.

[seszett]

They misunderstood "one or two-hour lunch anywhere between 1pm to 5pm" for "4-hour lunch from 1pm to 5pm". Same with France, people have a 1-hour lunch either from 12 to 1pm or from 1pm to 2pm, rarely a 2-hour lunch.

[bluesmoon]

Thanks for the feedback. It's more correct to say that traffic drops off for 3-4 hours rather than everyone goes offline for 3-4 hours. It's likely to be staggered based on the slope of the curve at that point.

[Symbiote]

Also, Germany is 13° east of Spain. That's almost 1 hour worth, 1 hour would be 15°.

There's a misconception that Spanish people are 'lazy' for their late lunches, but they're eating lunch at roughly the same local solar time.

[snkzxbs]

You are missing the fact that a lot of people in Spain, maybe the majority, do what’s called a “jornada partida”, which means that businesses close at around 1-2 pm and then reopen at around 5-6 pm. During that time people generally have lunch and maybe sleep.

Especially during the hotter months, the streets are practically empty.

[dcrazy]

This seemed to me to vary by region. It was near universal when I visited Andalucía, including in Sevilla. It was uncommon in Madrid, and I don’t remember encountering it at all in Barcelona.

[dagw]

Is that actually still a big thing? I've worked on several projects with people in Spain, and none of them did that. Lunch was never more than an hour, and basically everybody was back from lunch and working by 2.30 at the latest.

[ergl]

Jornada partida doesn't tend to apply to office workers and white collar work in general. It's common to see it in small shops, but it's in steep decline even in those areas.

[kranke155]

The siesta essentially does not exist in a lot of workplaces in Spain anyway.

[bluesmoon]

That's a fair criticism. The data suggests that there are different breaks spread out over that 3-4 hour period, not one break of 3-4 hours. I've reworded it accordingly.

[dcrazy]

It’s accurate for business hours in at least some parts of the country, but it is paired with late closing. Even office workers will be on the job until 8. Popular wisdom attributes it to Franco’s adoption of Central European Time to be aligned with Hitler.

[echelon]

> Lunch breaks are [...] two hours long in Spain

Wow.