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-   -   trains in Europe during Labor Day (May 1st) (https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/trains-in-europe-during-labor-day-may-1st-779200/)

afer7 Apr 15th, 2009 10:52 AM

trains in Europe during Labor Day (May 1st)
 
Hello
I am planning a trip to Europe for next week. I wanted to take a train from Amterdam to Barcelona on Friday May 1st, which is Labor Day. Do you know if trains run this day?
Labour day, that is.

thanks!

altamiro Apr 15th, 2009 11:31 AM

>Do you know if trains run this day?

Which train exactly? Just use www.bahn.de to see whether the train you want to take runs on a particular day.
This said, Amsterdam to Barcelona is definitely not a train distance - you wil have to spend all the day in the train. I would rather fly.

flanneruk Apr 15th, 2009 11:35 AM

May 1 is May 1. There's no such thing as "Labour Day".

It's a public holiday in much of Europe mostly because it's a traditional Catholic holiday connected to the cult of Mary. In some parts of Europe its celebration goes back way before Christianity and has nothing to do with any cult of labour: the socialist theft of the traditional pagan and Christian holiday is recent and rare.

But most things run more or less normally, though some public transport might run at greater or reduced frequency

For international trains, www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml is the best place to check.

Cowboy1968 Apr 15th, 2009 12:00 PM

flanner.. where did you dig up that nonsense?
May 1st has of course pagan roots, but it has never been a Catholic holiday until Pope Pius XII invented the memorial day of "Joseph the Worker" as a reaction to the workers'/ socialist holiday.
Google "haymarket affair" and you will learn why May 1st has become "Labour Day" in many countries.

flanneruk Apr 15th, 2009 12:12 PM

" it has never been a Catholic holiday until Pope Pius XII"

So that's why Magdalen College Oxford has been singing hymns to Mary at dawn on May 1 for centuries? That's why Roodmass was the central English May 1 celebration since at least the 11th century? And why Marian hymns were as much a part of medieval English Mayday celebrations as the well-dressing and maypoles?

That's why Charles IX of France received a lily (symbol of Mary's virginity) every Mayday?

Trouble with these Yanks in Europe: they know nothing about our history. But, on the basis of two Wikipedia references they delude themselves we're as ignorant as they are


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