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Comment by darkwater | Hacker News Reader

Looks like birds really like Iberia to stay during cooler times, just like many UK, Deutsch and French citizens ;)

As a person who emigrated from Scandinavia to the Iberian Peninsula, birds are not the only ones indeed :)

Most of the German/British tourists seem to come during the summer though, in contrast to the tourist birds who come during winter. Smart of the birds to avoid all the tourists!

"Most of the German/British tourists seem to come during the summer though"

That never made any sense to me. I also go rather go with the birds north in summer where it is cool and to spain in winter when it is still warm.

Summer break from school.

Now that there’s no kid in my household, we do travel more in winter (or whenever).

Spanish winter is very cold too - it’s not the tropics.

It's not exactly freezing

It can be, especially in the mountains. But the very south is pretty mild.

In some places, it definitely is, we go skiing in Spain in the winter :) Besides, even around Barcelona we get snow every 6-7 years, although it's not like in the north of the world exactly.

That was true years ago, even in the Pyrenees (excluding the 2025/2026 exceptional winter) the snow is more lacking than present.

Well, your way makes no sense, I visit cold places when they're the warmest (their summer) and make sure to stay home in the summer when it's the warmest. Almost like some people prefer a "cold" life and others a "warm" one, and that's OK :) Not more than preferences, doesn't have to make sense.

"I visit cold places when they're the warmest (their summer) "

Which is also what I said?

But otherwise I do prefer a temperate life. Not too hot, not too cold.

> Which is also what I said?

Well, "spain in winter when it is still warm" would not be "when that place is the warmest" in my mind. No foul, no harm though :)

You visit "cold places when they are warmest" - spain is usually not considered a cold place, but scandinavia is.

Just asked Google... Madrid's winter temperatures aren't far off my local (DC, USA) temperatures. Valencia is a bit warmer, but not quite "swimming in the Med" warm. But, DC isn't exactly Oslo either.

For me, a week in the Caribbean in Jan/Feb is a nice treat. And if I'm visiting Rome or Athens, I'll try for a shoulder season trip - not too hot, not too cold.

European swallows migrate to Africa in winter [1], they move through Spain and the middle-east, and a few more adventurous through Italy and Sicily ; and that's why they "bubble up" there first in this view. But you can see that, in the dead of winter, barely any swallow is left in the peninsula.

It would be nice to see the dataset extended to Africa and the middle-east.

[1](swallow migration patterns): https://tbhpartnership.org.uk/news/migration-marvels-part-2-...

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