Palio in Pescia!

We both had a blissful sleep last night, thanks to the glowing blue ball of Sandokan - a mosquito trap that attracts the little blighters with LED lights and sucks them into its trap. 

The glowing blue ball.

Who knows whether it was a coincidence, but we woke feeling refreshed and had a leisurely start to the day: breakfast with juice and coffee on the patio in a beautiful morning - not a cloud in the sky as the sun rose behind us, throwing shadows of trees onto the patio table amidst a gentle but fresh breeze, true bliss!

But not wanting to lose out on useful working time, and knowing we would be leaving for Pescia and the palio in the early afternoon, we decided just after 10am that we ought to get a couple of hours of work in before lunch.

Helen set to work on the terraces again with the backpack strimmer, and I went back to fencing duties. We both put a solid couple of hours' work in, and were quite grateful to break from it all for lunch, showers and a quick change.

As something a little different from the norm, I decided to make breaded turkey escalopes with a tomato, bean and cheese side salad. It was delicious and made a very welcome change!

At about 2pm, we mounted our bikes and headed down the hill into Pescia to meet Sue, Chris and their boys, Henry and Erik. Today was the culmination of the week-long Palio in Pescia, and Henry and Erik were both taking part, playing the drums.

Now for a history lesson:

The first document mentioning Pescia as a settlement goes back to 742BC where it took its name from the river that runs through it. Skip forward to the 1200s (was that a sigh of relief I hear from our audience?), by which time Pescia was a fully fledged town under the rule of Lucca trying to unhitch itself from Lucca's control to become part of the growing Florentine empire. In 1281, battles broke out between Pescia and Lucca, which continued until the 6th of February 1339 when, with more than a little help from Florence, Lucca was finally defeated and Pescia fell under the control of Florence.

(This is all so much more confusing when you have cats named Florence and Lucca!)

The authorities decided to dedicate the town to Saint Dorothy, the 6th of February being her day in the calendar, and in order to celebrate the new allegiance, the Palio was inaugurated. 

The Palio was originally a horse race (as it still is today in Siena) between the four ancient districts of the town: Santa Maria, Ferraia, San Michele and San Francesco. The Palio remained in this form until 1526, nearly 300 years later, when fashion dictated a change in the competition from horse racing to jousting. This format was such a success that it was repeated every year until 1677 when, due to waning interest, the palio was stopped.

Many attempts to revive the palio failed until, in 1978, a committee responsible for reviving the noble past of Pescia and the traditions that came with it created a new Palio involving an archery competition as the main event, and rescheduling it from 6th February to the much balmier early September.

Right, history lesson over, and Helen is now taking the baton to finish the blog post:

We pedalled our way down the hill to Chris and Sue's, where we found that the boys had already been called into town for practising and to go over the schedule for the afternoon. We had a chat with Chris and Sue over a coffee before wandering down into the town to find a suitable spot to wait for the procession to come past.

We popped into the nearest cafe for a quick glass of prosecco for refreshment, then positioned ourselves on the pavement.

Each district has its own set of drummers, its own archers and its own flag throwers, and they all process along the streets together with flag bearers, people dressed up as members of the nobility, and other notable characters. Henry and Erik are drummers for San Francesco rione (quarter), which is the area of town in which they live, so we concentrated our support on the dark blues.

The procession was rudely interrupted at one point by a downpour (complete with thunder), sending marching drummers, peasants and nobility scattering for shelter - many of whom ran in to the San Francesco church to sit it out. We chose to shelter in the cafe (what better excuse for another glass of prosecco?).

The rain shower was short-lived though, and soon the procession was back in full swing, so we walked further into town to try and catch up with the boys - San Francesco was the first quarter in the procession, so by the time we'd seen the other 3 quarters march past, the San Francesco lot were way ahead of us.

It was all an incredible experience. We couldn't get over how much everybody seemed to be loving it and totally into the spirit of things. We saw quite a few faces in the procession that we recognised (one of the guys from the bank, the grumpy man from the comune office, another shop assistant we recognised), and the crowds cheering everyone on were so enthusiastic. All the participants seemed to be very proud of what they were doing, and everyone was having a fantastic time. It literally seemed as if every single resident of Pescia was either taking part in the palio or watching it - and loving it. The atmosphere was incredible. The drumming sent tingles down our spines and we were swept up in a wave of happiness and pride. It was just wonderful. We had to keep pinching ourselves and reminding ourselves that this is where we live!

Once the procession has marched its way through the four quarters of the town, it ends up in the main square, which is where the whole thing culminates with flag throwing, an archery competition and lots more drumming, trumpeting, cheering and whooping.

The crowds in the square were pretty huge, so after a while we decamped to a cafe for, yes, more prosecco.

We spent a very enjoyable few hours absorbing the atmosphere and chatting away with Chris and Sue, before finally realising that the evening had drawn on, and the competition had reached its conclusion. Sadly San Francesco didn't win, but they put in a good showing and came third. Santa Maria were the victors, followed by Ferraia, San Francesco, and San Michele in last place.

We eventually decided it was time to head back to Chris and Sue's, where Sue cooked us some of their delicious home-produced eggs as a late-night snack (none of us having had any dinner), and we sat and chatted, drank a little more wine (of course), before eventually dragging ourselves away (knowing that it was a work-day for both of us in the morning - and that we had the Big Bike Ride up the hill yet to tackle) at a little after midnight.

We managed to make it up the hill on our bikes without too much trouble - the moon was beautifully full and bright as anything (I kept thinking there was a car coming around the corner before realising it was just the moonlight shining on the road), and got back home (to two very hungry cats) just before 1am.

A wonderful day!