PALIO DI SIENA

After nearly 150 days, it was sadly time to leave Florence.  However, as well as the rest of the Batrouney clan, we were really excited to arrive in Siena for the famous 'Il Palio'.

Anna and I had booked our accommodation well in advance (back in Jan 2012) and the Batrouney's were lucky to score a great little B&B with not a lot of notice for this popular weekend.

Unfortunately the excitement that Anna and I had was short lived, as when we arrived at the hotel, the rude, arrogant, prick of a shit bloke told us that because we were 2 hours late to the check-in time of 4pm, he had given our room away for the 3rd and 4th nights of our booking, which included the Palio.

Needless to say we were more than angry, but remained calm as he said that he would try and find somewhere else for us.

There was nothing we could do, so we got over it, unpacked and then went and met Bud, Daz and Will for a drink and then out for dinner.

The city was absolutely abuzz with people - The Palio is life itself for the Sienese and they were certainly showing it with plenty of drums, instruments, singing and chanting all through the streets.

Piazza del Campo - where the horse race is held

Siena is broken up into 17 districts, known as "contrada". Each race has 10 horses representing 10 contrada's which are chosen by including the 7 that didn't race previously, plus another 3 drawn at random.

Each contrada is named after an animal or symbol, each with its own long history and complicated set of heraldic and semi-mythological associations.  They comprise:

Aquila (Eagle), Bruco (Caterpillar), Chiocciola (Snail), Civetta (Owl), Drago (Dragon), Giraffa (Giraffe), Istrice (Porcupine), Leocorno (Unicorn), Lupa (She-wolf), Nicchio (Seashell), Oca (Goose), Onda (Wave), Pantera (Panther), Selva (Forest), Tartuca (Tortoise), Torre (Tower), Valdimontone (Valley of the Ram).

lights lining the streets in the Onda (Wave) contrada

That night we had a decent meal and then a post dinner beer in the Piazza del Campo before heading home for a decent nights sleep.

Saturday morning we were up relatively early to get back to the Campo in time to see the first of 6 practice runs.  The jockeys took it pretty easily, just letting the horses get to know the track conditions, but it was still good to watch.

Tartuca contrada residents rolling their jockey and horse back to the stable

After the excitement of seeing the horses for the first time, we headed back down the city escalators to our car and off for a day at Perugia, about 1.5hrs away by car.

This was where one of the greatest stuff ups of all time occurred - we parked the car at what we thought was the entrance to the city of Perugia, but after walking up hill in the 35 degree heat for almost an hour, we were all so stuffed and so sweaty and some of us so angry (Erica), that I don't think we cared too much for Perugia that day!

main street in Perugia, sweaty coglione's

The main reason we visited Perugia is because Daz had spent 6 months at the University studying Italian back in the day, so it was good for him to be able to visit the city and the university again. If only he had remembered where to park the car haha!

Pizza for lunch and a stop off at the oldest cafe in Perugia (opened in 1860) and then we smartly hopped on a bus, which took us back to our beautifully air-conditioned car and headed back to Siena.

view from Perugia looking out over the hills, somewhere down there was our damn car

We arrived back in Siena in the Tartuca contrada, where Bud, Daz and Will were staying and decided that we needed to buy scarves to show our support for the tortoise.  Although Anna and I weren't staying in that district, we hated our because of the tosser that ran our hotel.

Turtoise lights decorating the streets of the Tartuca contrada

We were also just in time to see the horses being led from the stable to the Campo for their 2nd practice run.  It was amazing to watch them trot through the cobble stone streets of Siena, with hundreds of supporters following them, singing, banging, cheering etc, it was simply amazing how into they all got just for a practice!

even the kids from each contrada would be signing and chanting 

all the blokes from each contrada would then stop at the top of the straight and go crazy

for a practice run, it sure was busy and gave us an insight into how busy it would be on the day

That night we went out for a few beers in our new Tartuca scarves at an outdoor bar just near the Siena Duomo.  It was terribly hot and sweaty that night, so after the first round of only just cold beers, Daz went in to the bar and got them to put the next round in the freezer, it was a great move, and it got us thinking.....are Australian's the only ones that like their beers really really really cold?

Dinner was at a traditional family run restaurant a few steps away from the bar.  Apart from the broken air-conditioner and subsequent sweaty underpants, most of us thoroughly enjoyed our meal.  I was rapt with my pasta entree, however my main meal looked and tasted like an awful meatloaf, it really was quite bad.

The next morning Anna and I changed from shit hotel with shit bloke, into average B&B with seriously old Nonna there to greet us.  We then all met up for breakfast in the Campo, walked around town for a while and then popped into this great alimentaria (meats, cheeses, wines etc) in the main street to pick up supplies for lunch.

The man who owned and ran the Alimentaria was an absolute cracker, a real showman.  He knew so much about Australia and even made his side-kick sing the national anthem to us, whilst there were others in the shop, including one guy from NZ who was less than impressed!  He was also quite keen on Anna and when he learnt that I was her boyfriend, he wanted me out of the shop, it was very funny.

We walked out with a huge array of cold meats and cheeses, bought some fruit and beers nearby and then ended up in a great shaded spot where the Tartuca contrada were holding their big dinner on the eve of the Palio.

We were even treated with the Tartuca flagthrowers practising their routine right in front of us.

It was now Sunday arvo around 3pm and Will and I were keen to leave for the Campo to get a good spot for what we thought was the Palio that evening.  We were so excited, so we went back to the Batrouney's B&B to pick up our beers that were chilling in the freezer and headed in, thinking that there would already be plenty of people there.
We arrived to find hardly anyone there at all and were able to score an awesome position, right near the start/finish line.  We cracked open our beers and got comfortable, ready for the 4-5hr wait.  Not long after an American bloke came upto us and asked what time the practice run was on that evening.  I laughed and told him that the practice runs were over and that the real thing was on at 7:45pm.  As he walked away bewildered, I had plenty to say about the dumb, stupid American.
Well didn't I feel like an idiot when we found out that in fact the Palio was on the following day....what a cock up!

We left the Campo embarrassed and confused as to how we could had stuffed that up so bad.  I felt partially to blame as I was Guida, but at least we hadn't missed it.

Bud, Daz, Will and Anna went home for an afternoon siesta and I decided to embrace the heat and stay out and about around the Campo and watch all the goings on.

I had a couple of beers with some Aussie blokes that I met and then went and got a great spot on the straight, right on the fence, to watch the practice run.

The square seemed to fill up to almost capacity, all the contrada's were loudly chanting away, that atmosphere was so awesome.

One of the highlights was the carabinieri (police) coming out on their horses and trotting one and a half laps before charging flat out with their swords at the ready.  The sudden unexpected change in pace and roar from the crowd was electrifying.

The horses then came out for their practice run.  At this moment we found out that the Tartuca horse had been injured and wouldn't take part in the practice race and most likely wouldn't race in the Palio either.  It was shit that the contrada we had picked and bought scarves for was now not going to race, but there was nothing we could do, except pick another horse to barrack for!

That night it was the Euro Cup final between Italy and Spain.  Surprisingly the people of Siena didn't seem to care much for it as they were so engulfed in the palio, so much so that there were no big screen tv's set up or anything.  We had to settle for a restaurant that was showing the game, but in the end Italy got thumped, so it was a bit of a let down anyway.

Walking around town after dinner that night, it was amazing to see the different Contrada's partaking in their traditional dinner on the eve of the Palio.  Literally hundreds of people in each contrada, all decked out in their colours, lined the streets at wooden tables and were there all night eating and singing along, I wish I could have got involved!

The next morning the city was again abuzz with excitement, but this time it was a little different, there seemed to be just that little bit extra anticipation around.  There were ape's going around the Campo smoothing out the track, drink stands being set up in the middle of the track and the sounds of drums echoing throughout the narrow cobblestoned streets.

Will and I had been wanting to climb the Torre del Mangia for the previous few days, so after we had breakfast it was the perfect opportunity to fill in time whilst we waited for the Palio to draw nearer.

The tower, which is situated adjacent to the Palazzo Pubblico (Town Hall) was built between 1338-1348 and at 88m high, was designed to be the exact same height as the Duomo di Siena, as a sign that the church and the state had equal amounts of power.

At times the climb became very very narrow and quite steep, a nightmare for a claustrophobic person, but 400 odd steps later, we reached the top for amazing views over the city of Siena, the surrounding countryside and the Campo below.

11:30am and people had already begun saving spots near the start/finish line - the race was due to start at 7:45pm!

Afterwards, we met back up with Bud, Daz and Anna who had just visited the Siena Cathedral (Duomo di Siena).  They absolutely raved about it and said me must go and see it......so that we did.

The cathedrals interior is truly stunning.  The walls and pillars continue the black-and-white stripe theme of the exterior, while the vaults are painted blue with gold stars.  High along the walls are a long series of busts of previous Pope's which stare down at you and make you feel like you have to tread carefully.

Lunch time arrived, so we all got stuck into the left over meat, cheese and fruit from the day before, freshened up and got changed and headed for the Campo.  This time our excitement was warranted!

We arrived around 3:30pm, picked what we thought was the best spot and settled in for the long haul.  A few cold beers made the wait all that more easy, however the nearby fatties did their best at ruining this!

The crowd started to fill up and become very noisy and by about 5-6pm we had somehow been pushed back towards the only gate in use.  This was a problem as there were at least a few more thousand people to enter the square and they all came bumping and bustling their way literally right through the middle of us.  Des and Troy did their best to hold up the fort, but it was no use, so for the next 30 minutes we were basically in a mosh pit.

despite the jostling crowd, we were all smiles

The trumpets started and out came the huge white oxen, carrying with them the flag of Siena, followed by hundreds of people dressed up in medieval costumes, performing all sorts of traditional acts.

The horses finally came out to a huge roar from the estimated 60,000 strong crowd (hard to believe), they trotted around for a bit before complete and utter silence fell across the whole area as each contrada name was drawn out of a hat to determine in what order they started.

The beautiful black horse from the Onda (Wave) contrada was lucky enough to get prime spot on the line and this was greeted by cheers from the crowd.
It took a solid 5 minutes of agonising waiting as the jockeys jostled their horses into place and tried to keep them calm and then BANNNNNNNG, a bomb-like gun shot echoed around the square and they were off....the crowd went crazy, the atmosphere was as good as any footy match at the G.

Coming down the back straight along the Torre del Mangia and Palazzo Pubblica, the jockey from the  Leocorno (Unicorn) contrada started to lose his grip (which must be easy to do considering they're riding bare back at full speed!) and by the time he reached the final turn of the 1st lap, he was gone!!

a horse can win the race without its jockey on board, but highly unlikely to happen!

The Onda horse in the blue and white got a great start and never looked back and by the time it was reaching the end of the 2nd lap, looked like a clear winner with only 1 lap to go.

The Onda contrada were the winners and immediately the horse and jockey were engulfed in a sea of blue and white flags.  We claimed that we had chosen the Onda contrada as well because the beautiful black horse was clearly the best looking of the bunch.

After waiting almost 5 hours for the race, it was over in around 90 seconds, but nevertheless it was such a great afternoon and one that we'll never forget.....a bit like a young boy losing his virginity I guess haha.

We were all knackered, but needed to eat, so we had a great meal at a restaurant that we had been wanting to go to, but could never get an outside table, and then called it a night.  After a few drinks that day and over dinner, Anna and I detoured past the first hotel we stayed at so that I could have a brief chat to the owner about my thoughts on him and his efforts towards us.  His supposed lack of English skills meant that all I could use to express my disappointment was every Italian swearword that I had learnt over the previous few months.  I think he got the message loud and clear.

There were a few things that went wrong this weekend; the Perugia debacle, getting the day of the Palio wrong and an ugly bide' incident, but all in all it was so much fun and one that we'll never forget!