Tuscany - Siena

So we figured on our way to Roma, we would stop over in a couple of Tuscan hill towns, try and make our way through the throngs of tourists and enjoy a little taste of the dolce vita.

Siena is about an hour from Florence and it seemed like a good first stop. We made some reservations and headed on over. Only problem was, neither Brooke nor I wrote down exactly where we were staying. Ok, let´s chalk this up as a learning experience and move on. I find an internet cafe, get the directions, then we hike with our packs the 15 minutes or so to our place. Tuscany is expensive and we stayed a bit out of town to save some cash. We get our dirty laundry together because we just can´t put it off another day and head into the old city to explore and get some clean clothes (yeah, laundry in Tuscany, how glamarous). We grab a bite on the way. Brooke gets and ham and cheese Piadine (like a thin hot sandwich with thin bread almost like filo, we have only seen this in Siena). I see what looks like salami and some kind of bacony product and point to it. It turns out it was salmon and tomatoes. Dude, salmon on a pizza is not cool. This aggression will not stand. Ok, things are not going my way this day. Hopefully things will look up. Siena is pretty touristy and has lot´s of daytrippers from Florence. We assume that by staying the night we will get a little taste of the real city, and we were definitely rewarded.

I was getting a little travel weary, after the constant snoring and sex from our roomates in Florence, and the couple of curveballs thrown our way during the day but then something magical happened. We were about to head home when we heard some drums playing. Naturally we followed the sound and came upon a parade.

A huge contingent was out in their period clothing (which period we are not sure, it ranged from Napoleon era military uniforms, to nurses, to women who looked like prostitues from the old west and a ´Red Baron´type plane thrown in for good measure).


We learned later from some people on a Rick Steves tour (a very talkative women who lived in Hyde Park in Austin as a matter of fact) that it was a celebration for winning a horse race called the Pailo earlier in the summer. This is a race dating back hundreds of years where they fill the main square with sand then ride bareback around it. It is a pretty brutal race with an anything goes attitude and these people want to win bad. The town is divided into 12 different subdivisions each represented by an animal. They take these divisions pretty seriously and if you move away from one part of town to the other, there is no coming back into the fold. The armadillo part of town won the race this year and all the people were out from that neighborhood celebrating. The race is in July and after they win there are several celebrations up until the end of September or so. We were lucky to catch one. We hung around the main square for a bit watching the merriment then followed it later to another area where a live band was playing. Good times.

What a great little interlude and a great little pick me up. These are the little things that make wandering out your front door and dealing with all manner of setbacks and nuisances worth it.