Il Ponte

A great Italian invention is the bridge. Not the bridge as in Ponte Vecchio etc - though of course that type of bridge is nice too. What I'm talking about is when there is a public holiday mid-week, for example today it's the first of May - the holiday for workers, so by putting Monday in as a day off you get a four day weekend. Fabulous! This is known as creating a bridge (ponte). Even if you don't have a day off to create a bridge, at least a mid-week hol breaks the week up.

In England all public holidays are on a Monday so there's no bridge building. If I remember correctly Berlusconi proposed for Italy to be this way as so many work days are lost with the Italian way. They did not vote him back in.