Small personal anecdote:
Some years ago such a bridge ocurred on a thursday and most people didn't work friday. Not me because there was work to be done. Now i open the Friday paper, and read an opinion column written by none other than one of my bosses at the time, a man with "political" ambitions. In line with many others like him he ranted about the loss of productivity and the hit on GDP because of "pontes" etc etc.., a theme that is very frequent on papers on those weekends.

Now, this story is interesting to me because i was working, reading his column, and this guy was spending a long weekend in Morocco... That i knew for a fact. Can i spell hypocrit? I guess i can...

He eventually became elected along with Barroso, back then, but left his seat on the parlament to become part  of the national TV board, RTP.

This would lead me to a portuguese institution called "Tacho". But that's for another diary.