A puente (Spanish for bridge) is a holiday in Spain. It is the day off to bridge the time between the weekend and a holiday, thereby creating a long weekend. A puente typically occurs when a holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, workers will then take the Monday or Friday as a puente, a day off.[1] Some businesses will close down altogether.[2]
In 2012, the Spanish government led by Mariano Rajoy, as it was faced with the eurozone crisis, initiated measures to move public holidays to Mondays and Fridays. The aim of the measure was to avoid puentes. Gayle Allard, an economist at IE Business School has said that the measure can improve productivity.[1] The Spanish Catholic Church opposed the measure, which would shuffle the day of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.[2]
| December | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mo | Tu | We | Th | Fr | Sa | Su |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |
| In 2022, the December holidays were 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, 25, 26, 31 and 1 January 2023 | ||||||
| 2022 | ||||||
In some years, such as 2022, December 6 (Constitution Day) falls on a Tuesday and December 8 (feast of the Immaculate Conception) falls on a Thursday. Thus, a period of 9 consecutive days has only three work days. Some workers take a very long weekend by asking just one, two or three days off. Such multiple puentes are sometimes called acueductos ("aqueducts", keeping the metaphor)[3] or macropuentes ("macro-bridges")[4]
References
edit- ^ a b Lauren Frayer (22 January 2012). "Spain workers lose bridge holidays in debt crisis austerity move". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
- ^ a b Lauren Frayer (22 May 2012). "Spain's Beloved Four-Day Weekends Are At Risk". NPR. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
- ^ Vidal, María (2 September 2022). "Estos son los puentes festivos (y algún acueducto) que se podrán disfrutar en Asturias en 2023". La Voz de Asturias (in European Spanish). Retrieved 5 December 2022..
- ^ "Accidentes y retenciones en el inicio del puente por el 'macropuente' de la Constitución". Telemadrid (in European Spanish). 2 December 2022. Retrieved 5 December 2022.