Italy - July 2006
Siena
Siena is known for being a pretty town, but that alone is not what we came for. We were there for Il Palio, the horserace for which the town is REALLY known. Run since the Middle Ages, it is a race around the perimeter of the town square, which they line with a dirt track for the occasion. 15,000+ people attend the race, which pits horses from 10 of the town's 17 neighborhoods in a three-lap race around the track that is of amazing intensity.
All the guidebooks say to get there early so you have a good place to watch the race; not bad advice. We got there just after 4pm, and took a spot on a little hill that gave us a good view of the Corner of Death (I made that up) where they have massive padding along the walls, since the horses come around that corner so fast as to suffer from understeer, and end up plowing into the walls - often ejecting the jockey, though this does not disqualify the horse from winning.
Before the race, there is a huge parade around the track that goes VERY slowly and is VERY redundant. All 17 neighborhoods come out and perform their flag dance, with a drummer playing a very specific rhythm, and a band in the background which occasionally plays a song. The problem is that the dance, the rhythm, and the song are the same for EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD. So by the end of the parade it gets quite dull. At the start of the parade, however, these horses come out for a couple of trots around the track. For the second lap, the lead horseman points his sword forward and the whole regiment gallops at full speed back to the stable at the end of the track. Exhilirating.
As the parade continues, the square fills up, as you can see here. Just to be in the square is an experience; people from all over the world are here. Including, as it turns out, a bunch of exchange students from UCSB - I had a UCSB t-shirt on, and two of the guys standing near us had UCSB shirts on. Turns out they were studying in Ireland and arrived early in Italy to come to the race. They were quite surprised when I told them I graduated in 1989!
At the end of the parade, Il Palio itself, the large vertical banner in the center of the photo. This is what the race is for: the winning horse's neighborhood get to hold the banner, a great honor. If you're interested in learning more about Il Palio, and I recommend it, the internet is full of websites that can tell you all about it much better than I can. This is not an advertisement for any particular web search engine.
To pick the order on the starting line, they draw the names randomly from a bag. As the first name is about to be called, the crowd of 15,000 is DEAD SILENT until the first name is read...."Torre". So Torre takes pole, then Drago on second, etc through to Pantera in position 10...and the race is on! Here you see the pack going into the first turn; that's Aguila in front, with Pantera the guy in blue and red about seventh or eigth place. That scuff-up in the middle would result in three riders falling off their horses.
Aguila would lead for one more lap, and then as they headed toward the next-to-last turn of the race, Pantera finally caught up with Aguila and the two horses sprinted to the finish. Pantera nosed across the finish line, to the sound of a cannon being fired as the race ended with Pantera the winner by a head! Guess what neighborhood we were staying in? PANTERA! So we were up until 3 in the morning celebrating the victory with the locals. It was the latest night we had on the trip, and the only time - including when Italy would win their World Cup games - that we really saw the Italians get excited about anything.
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