Monday was Ferragosto, a national holiday here in Italy. Historically, it was a religious holiday as a large portion of Italians are Catholics (it's not called Roman Catholicism for nothing people). August 15th is widely celebrated throughout the Catholic community as the feast of the Assumption or the celebration of the Virgin Mary's ascension into heaven. Even though most Italians do still attend church on the 15th, it's become so much more...particularly this year since the holiday fell on a Monday. Most towns and villages took advantage of this fact by having massive parties with fireworks and craft booths all weekend long. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend any in the area but I bet they would have been super fun.
To add whipped cream to the awesome sundae that is the three day weekend, the entire month of August is pretty much one long vacation for Italians. Europeans get significantly more vacation time than Americans and they put it to good use by closing up shop (literally....a good 75% of stores and restaurants here are closed for at least two weeks of the month) and heading to the beach or tourist towns. Don't even consider going to Venice and Rome during August unless you get off on massive crowds and heat stroke. While it seems a little strange that an entire country goes on leave at the same time, it's also kind of nice...at least like this you wouldn't have to worry about missing anything at work or trying to make your vacation time align with your friends just to go away together. File that under "things I could totally get used to."
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