SIENA
Our next stop was the small, medievil town of Siena. And we were there just in time to attend their annual horse race called Il Palio. It was one of the coolest traditions we’ve experienced this trip. The main square in town was transformed into a race track. The city is divided into Contradas (basically different neighborhoods), each with a different mascot like a tortoise, shell or snail. Each contrada hires a horse jockey to represent it. They compete for pride and a banner called Il Palio. The entire city and tourists pack into the center of the square, arriving as early as 10 am to save their spot for the 7 pm race. The jockeys ride bareback and are assigned a horse at random only days before the event. It was a lot of build up for a 20 second race. It was an amazing thing to experience, we’ve never seen such neighborhood pride. And there was no sparing the losing teams’ feelings. For two days after the race the winning team, the Tortugas, paraded through the city, wearing their colors, making sure everyone knew who had won. We went to the winning Contrada after the race and they served free wine all night so everyone could celebrate their victory with them. We ran into our friends from the booze cruise again at the race-small world. The next day we squeezed in some churches and museums, packed up and got on the bus to Florence.
In quaint Seina city of Italy, there is a world famous, unmatched festival of horse races begin with splendid treat on the night before the races. On the very day, after sanctification of horses in church, races start in middle of 50 thousand viewers. With thrilling completion of races, there is a feast extravaganza from winning Contrada.
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