Looking for Ponti… a New Year's activity
It may seem that I am obsessed with bridges after my last post, but “ponti” (bridges) are an integral part of Italian life and one of the first things that everyone checks when they get their free calendar from the butcher or the banker at the start of a new year. Tomorrow morning colleagues and parents will be claiming and trading ponti as 2010 is carved up.
A “ponte” occurs when a national holiday falls on a weekday (ideally close to the weekend) and the whole country will hope to take a day or two off work to get a long weekend. Schools close on the intermediate days when Tuesdays and Thursdays are involved. Since the national holidays are on fixed dates there can be awful years where nearly all the red-circled dates fall on the weekends (so no ponti but extra pay) and there can be Ponti rich years with whole months (April and May particularly) riddled with half weeks. A good run of ponti can completely change the turnover of hotel and restaurant trades, not to mention bump up the number of campers on the roads or panicked news broadcasts that talk about “exodi” and “contro-exodi” to describe the vast numbers of people going from A to B and back again.
We make a point of staying at home on the estate in case established or new private clients are in the area and choose to come and visit. We have “vendita diretta” (on site sales) and we are one of the closest estates to the centre of Montalcino which means that we often receive unexpected visitors which is nearly always great. I have hosted and toasted in my pajamas or while carrying a napping child, in the evenings and at weekends. I remember coming back from the gym to find 8 Canadians sitting on the bench outside the cellar. They turned out to be from The Barberians Steakhouse in Toronto www.barberians.com and we had a great impromptu tasting in spite of my peculiar attire and shiny face.
For those planning holidays, the dates are 25 April, 1 May, 8 May (just Montalcino), 2 June, 15 August, 1 November and 8 December. The full list includes 1st and 6th January, Easter Monday, 25 and 26 December. Add these to the minimum 20 days of statutory holidays for workers for a total of circa 31 days off a year. Best of all are the “festività soppresse” – national holidays that are no longer holidays but are paid extra or can be switched with time off as a gesture to Italian history. There are 5 of them… got to love this country!