defestival1-1, Exercise 2: Bavaria and Scotland

Model answer (check the current lists for the year in question):

Shared in both: New Year's Day, Good Friday, Christmas Day and (in Scotland, as a bank holiday) 26 December (check). Easter Monday is a German public holiday but not a Scottish bank holiday (check). Scotland's 2 January and its bank holidays in May and August have no direct Bavarian equivalent.

Bavaria only (check): Epiphany (6 January), Corpus Christi, and All Saints' Day (1 November). Ascension Day, Whit Monday and 1 May are public holidays in every German state, not just Bavaria; Scotland has bank holidays in early and late May instead.

What the differences show:
- Bavaria's extra days follow its Catholic history and the religious settlement after the Reformation; Scotland's calendar follows a Presbyterian past in which Christmas was long played down and Hogmanay and New Year mattered more (check the details).
- A holiday list is therefore a record of religious and political history, as much as a leisure rota.
- The exercise is easiest with the official lists open for the year you are looking at, since days change.