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Remember practically everything will be closed! Ferragosto: August Bank Holiday
[Susan Glasspool]
All the shops are closely shuttered and closed, usually with notices happily (but for visitors sadistically), displaying the words “chiuso per ferie”, which of course means, closed for the holidays! Why do they all shut shop and desert the city at the same time? Ferragosto, the equivalent of the British August Bank Holiday, has been a feast day since Roman times, when it went by the name of “feriae Augusti” in honor of the Emperor Augustus.
The date was later transformed into a Christian festivity to celebrate the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. More recently, in the 1960’s and 1970’s, when most of the population was employed in big factories, August became the time of the year when the larger industrial plants closed down to allow time for their workers to take their annual holidays. Families started taking this summer break at the seaside or else returning to their home towns to rejoin their families, so that eventually most people ended up by going on holiday in August.
This has become such a well rooted habit over the years that it is hard to change and, although not everyone goes away for the whole month nowadays, preferring to take short breaks during the year, almost everything closes on August 15th itself. In compensation, there is often plenty of entertainment available in the city and surrounding countryside to celebrate this festivity (like the events surrounding the Palio of Siena, which culminate on the 16th).
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