Bank & Public Holidays

On the last Thursday before Lent, queues form outside Poland’s cake shops, and the streets fill with the smell of freshly made doughnuts. Called “Fat Thursday”, this is a day of uncontrolled gluttony, a real gourmand’s holiday.

The Poles like to relax. Poland is the European country with the second highest number of public holidays in the year. We have 11 of them, while Portugal, Malta and Slovakia each have 12, and Hungary only 6.

At Christmas, the most important and best-liked festival in the year, the whole family sits down at the table together. Tradition dictates that before supper, which consists of 12 different dishes, all those assembled should break traditional thin wafers, called oplatki, together. At Easter, on the other hand, everyone gathers for a traditional breakfast at which they share eggs which have been blessed in church the day before. The next day, “Wet Monday”, the Poles wet each other with water (and in some regions, beat each other with juniper branches) as a sign of good luck.

Other church holidays are celebrated in a more modest style. At Epiphany, Catholics write the letters K+M+B on their front doors using consecrated chalk, at Whitsun, they carry calamus plants to church, and on Corpus Christi, they walk in processions to four altars. At the Feast of the Assumption, thousands of pilgrims stand at the walls of the Sanctuary on Jasna Gora in Czestochowa to take part in a celebratory mass.

State holidays are, for most Poles, an opportunity for relaxation. On the first three days of May, the streets of the main towns are deserted as crowds build up in the popular tourist destinations. The consecutive holidays of Labour Day, National Flag Day and Constitution Day give everyone the right to take a break from work.

Poles also keenly celebrate certain special days even though they still have to go to work: Women’s Day, Children’s Day, Grandmother’s and Grandfather’s Day, Miners’ Day, Valentine’s Day, St Andrew’s Day... It doesn’t matter whether a particular celebratory tradition came from the East or West. What matters is that people enjoy themselves, remember those close to them or make a kind gesture.

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