PALIO: Forza Tartuca!

I know I haven't posted in ages, but now that I'm a little more settled in my new gig, it's time to catch up! I want to start from the beginning and tell you about my proper Senese Palio! For those of you who don't know, Siena is famous for its Palio, a horse race that takes places in a transformed Piazza del Campo between the various Contradas, or neighborhood communities in the historic center, named after various animals and such. It's absolutely the most important event of the year for the people of Siena and trumps political elections, soccer championships and grandma's famous pici pasta.

There's more pomp and circumstance surrounding the Palio than anything I've ever seen, in the form of such things as medieval costumes, flag-throwing, epic block party dinners, and horse blessings inside of churches. Carlotta came up to Siena to spend the Palio with me and we kicked off the day by watching the blessing of the Tartuca Contrada's horse inside their church:


We then followed a couple of various Contrada parades around town (there were 16 independent and impromptu parades, one for each Contrada) and finally ended up in the Piazza del Duomo, where every Contrada parade passes to show their colors, boast their pride, and throw their flags:





I live in the Contrada of the Unicorn, and here were our flag throwers:

We then moved on to Piazza del Campo to brave the crowds and the wait until the actual race. I couldn't believe just how many people our large yet quaint main piazza managed to fit.

We had to rest our feet while waiting two hours for the race to happen, trapped in the center of the piazza.


If you look REAL close you can see the horses racing around the piazza:

So after three turns around the piazza, the race was over in less than one minute. But in the end, Tartuca won, the Contrada whose horse we had seen blessed in the church! So we successfully picked the right team for our first Palio! Seems like we should have put some money on it...