The Palio is a horse race that takes place every year on July 2 and August 16. There are 17 different areas of Siena -- contrade -- 10 of which compete in the race. Nothing, but nothing is as important as winning. To come in second is a disgrace. Each area has a fierce rival and it is vital that your opponent does not win. Each contrade has a symbol or animal associated with it, and as you walk around the city, you see it represented in fountains and flags and lamps. The Dante Alighieri school is represented by the tortuga (the tortoise), which a lot of the our own students have adopted, because it is the same as the tortoise of the University of Maryland. The one near my apartment here is the drago (the dragon). The Dragons apparently don't have an enemy, and unfortunately, we missed the day that they paraded around keeping everyone up with their drumming and marching around town, because it happened before we arrived.
Link to mpeg from Keighley's cell phone of one of the parades going by - taken out the window of the apartment.
They were rehearsing for the Palio (which is Monday), so they ran the horses in a rehearsal run, but there was a bit of a disaster. I couldn't really see much but bald spots and other people's cameras waving around, but apparently they didn't drop the ropes completely, and one of the horses went down and was trampled and chaos ensued. All we saw was the barriers coming down and a lot of crying people storming out. They wouldn't even tell us what was going on, and when we asked, simply said "Vaffanculo!" (F*** you!) Apparently one of the horses was out of commission after that, and one of the riders hurt his hand. They were angry with the mayor for not stopping the race immediately and everyone was in an uproar. Unlike a soccer match, an actual fight didn't break out (although we were secretly hoping for a little more action than actually took place, given the fact that we couldn't see anything going on.)
Don't ask me how people really take part in the Palio on the real day, because you can sort of see how it all plays out from the pictures I did get...a big arena...you get your places around 4 in the afternoon for an event that begins around 7:30...you maintain your position for four hours straight with full sun exposure without eating or going to the bathroom surrounded by thousands of people until the event finally begins and you are circled by enormous speeding animals while you're hemmed in on all sides by the crazed mob around you who could stampede and crush you into crumbs with every hoofbeat. Madness! What a blast :)
It was Snail Day, but the Snail People were bummed out because their horse had been trampled, although they marched and drummed nonetheless. (Me, I was trying not to let on that "Snail Day" was making me think: mmmm....escargot....."
Everyone is gearing up for the Palio - crowds singing in the street (Keighley recorded the song on her cell phone), everyone waving flags and wearing their colors.
The dude came in first last night in the practice trials...and hey, he was THIS CLOSE to my lucky sock just a few seconds ago....
At around 7:30 pm, the horses started lining up between two ropes. Much care was taken to get the first nine into some indeterminate perfect order (the horses didn't want to cooperate, they bumped butts and kept turning around the wrong way and getting out of line, etc.) After countless fake starts and finagling and re-introductions and re-line-ups, suddenly the 10th horse came up from behind and as soon as he hit the first rope the second one was dropped and the race was on. Ninety seconds later, the Dragon horse had thrown its rider and bit the dust, and the gray horse (the Duck) won the match. The winning contrade (just across the street from us) burst into songs celebrating its greatness, the losers went off to cry in each others arms, the dragon horse showed up in the alley of Olé Olé! to snort and chuff and be hosed off of the blood he received in his tumble, and we searched the news in vain to find out what happened to the jockey he threw (still wondering by the way). No TV commentary during the entire match, although they replayed the 90-minute part over and over again.
