It's just nicer I guess. In my country if there's a bank holiday (or two) during a week many people take one or two days of vacation to bridge it to the weekend

It's just nicer I guess. In my country if there's a bank holiday (or two) during a week many people take one or two days of vacation to bridge it to the weekend, or even take the whole week off. There's more "bang for buck" when you have, for example, 9 consecutive days off at the "cost" of 3 PTO days.