A traveller can arrive in a major city and find almost everything shut for reasons that were entirely predictable locally. National holidays close far more than the date itself suggests.
Closure is legally structured, not optional
Many countries restrict trading on specific days through law rather than custom, so shops close because they must rather than because demand is low.
Exemptions usually cover pharmacies, transport hubs and some hospitality, which is why a station concourse can be busy while the surrounding streets are empty.
Enforcement varies by region within a single country, so a holiday can be strict in one city and loose in another two hours away.
Bridging days extend the shutdown
Where a holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, the intervening working day is frequently taken as leave, turning a single day into a four-day block.
Schools and public offices often formalise this, and private employers follow because too few staff are available to operate normally anyway.
The effect is that a one-day holiday on the calendar behaves like a long weekend on the ground, including for museum and attraction opening hours.
Staffing rosters compound the effect
Holiday working typically attracts premium pay, so businesses that could open often decide the additional revenue does not cover the additional wage cost.
Restaurants in particular close for the whole block, because a kitchen needs a full brigade and suppliers are not delivering during the period anyway.
Independent businesses use the fixed closure to take their own annual break, which is why a neighbourhood can be quieter than the holiday alone would explain.
Transport thins out rather than stops
Public transport usually runs a Sunday-equivalent timetable, which means longer waits and earlier last services rather than a complete suspension.
Intercity trains and long-distance buses fill in the days before and after as residents travel to family, so seats sell out well ahead.
Domestic flight demand follows the same pattern, and the return leg at the end of the block is consistently the tightest part of the period.
Planning around it rather than into it
The dates are published far in advance by national authorities, and checking them for the destination before booking removes most of the risk.
A holiday is not necessarily a bad time to arrive. Processions, markets and open-air events concentrate on those days and are the reason the city looks the way it does.
The failure mode is arriving on a holiday expecting an ordinary city, with no food bought and a museum itinerary that cannot run.