| Hello everyone, welcome back to italianpod101.com. |
| My name is Desy. |
| Mi chiamo Desy. |
| And in this video, we're going to talk about what happens in August in Italy. |
| Agosto in Italia |
| So August is agosto, il mese di agosto, the month of August. |
| August in Italy is known to be the month of rest, il mese di riposo. |
| Basically because it's super hot, so everyone is just with no energy to do anything. |
| And in fact, this is when companies close and their lavoratori, their employees, their workers |
| have their days off. |
| Not only days off, it's really called ferie, ferie, so it's the paid leave for vacation. |
| It has to be at least two weeks, due settimane, due settimane di ferie. |
| And if it's a company that closes like altogether, so there's no working hours and no business |
| in that period, it's usually the two central weeks of August, le due settimane centrali |
| di agosto. |
| Of course, then it depends. |
| If it's a business that goes on all year around, then you take shifts and turns with your colleagues. |
| But in general, I'd say that August is when people slow down and stop. |
| And why the two central weeks of August? |
| Not only because it's supposed to be the hottest time of the year, also because it changes |
| year by year, but because there is ferragosto, ferragosto. |
| Ferragosto is the 15th of August, so just mid-summer, 15, quindici di agosto. |
| It comes from the Roman period, actually. |
| In fact, it's ferie augustus, so the feries, as I said before, is the period of rest given |
| by Augustus, the emperor. |
| So not the month, but the emperor, which, by the way, gives the name to the month. |
| It celebrated the end of agriculture works, so la fine dei lavori agricoli. |
| In fact, people back then stopped to use animals for work and they put flowers, for example, |
| on horses and donkeys in order to celebrate. |
| Some cities still do that. |
| In fact, you can find a lot of Pali and festivals in general, especially in Siena. |
| They do that the 16th of August. |
| Actually, it's said that historical ferragosto was the 1st of August, but then it was moved |
| to the 15th because the church wanted to combine the two things, one being the ferie augustus |
| and the second one the assumption of holy Mary, l'assunzione di Maria. |
| Beside the reason why people celebrate, the thing is that we do celebrate the 15th of |
| usually with picnics, so pranzo al sacco, which literally means lunch in a bag. |
| In fact, it's packed lunch. |
| It's interesting to notice this is the only time that we tend to go outside instead of |
| being inside, like when we do for Christmas or Easter, for example. |
| So it's common to have either, as I was saying, a picnic or a barbecue, una grigliata. |
| Also, almost everyone is going to have anguria, watermelon. |
| Where do you go to celebrate ferragosto? |
| It could be anywhere, so you either go to the mountains, to the countryside, to the sea. |
| The thing is, everyone is going somewhere. |
| In fact, it's even called l'esodo di ferragosto, ferragosto's exodus. |
| Esodo, esodo. |
| And that's when we get red bollettino stradale, bollettino stradale rosso. |
| So a red traffic notice, meaning that traffic information and, yeah, |
| bollettino is what we call news, says that it's going to be super crowded, super packed. |
| So everyone has their own strategies to fight this exodus, like people departing the 14th |
| or even the 13th. |
| It depends what day of the week it is, right? |
| It's not only people that celebrate. |
| I was always saying before some cities organize stuff. |
| Of course, you can find a lot of fuochi d'artificio, fireworks. |
| Also notti bianche, literally white nights, so people don't sleep and have |
| shops open all day, especially at the seaside, all day and all night. |
| Or historical parades, cortei storici. |
| Not only ferragosto, but August in general is a great chance for hiking, |
| escursioni in montagna, or just camminate in montagna, walking, passeggiate. |
| It's another way to say walking while passeggiate is like slowly and |
| loosely flat, camminata could be up on a hill, while escursioni is just like really hiking. |
| Anyway, just being outside in the nature, of course, a lot of people go to the seaside, |
| al mare, but piscine pools are especially crowded in the city, because for people that |
| cannot take leaves or don't travel in general, they go to their city's pools. |
| Piscine comunali, for example, city hall piscine, city hall pools. |
| Infatti, in fact, the weather is really hot, usually 35 and above in cities at least, |
| therefore you could find shops closing even if not for the whole day, just like, you know, |
| between 12 and 4, what you would call la siesta, even though it's not an Italian word. |
| It's very humid, molto umido, and for this reason it's very common to find thunderstorms, |
| tempeste, and even grandinate, which is a storm with ice, so a hailstorm, |
| which are becoming a problem for agricultural work, but also for cars, actually, |
| because they get damaged by the grandine. |
| In general, August is going to be crowded, so affollato, in tourist spots, because it's high |
| season, alta stagione, while you could find some cities that are usually packed with workers, |
| almost empty. That also means, though, that there is not a lot to see, usually. |
| If you had the chance to come to Italy in another month, I would suggest either June or July or |
| September, because August tends to be either really hot or really crowded, but of course, |
| there are plenty of things to enjoy if you can come only in August as well. |
| Let me know in the comments what you usually do on the 15th of August, |
| even if you didn't know it was Ferragosto for us, and if you want to learn even more about |
| Italian culture and language and daily conversation, just click the link in the |
| description and download our PDF lessons. I'll see you soon, thank you for watching, ciao ciao, bye bye! |
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