Siena, Italy — IN a scene that harks back to the Middle Ages, 50,000 spectators in this city's packed, fan-shaped piazza explode with emotion as horses representing rival neighborhoods burst from their starting positions.
Bareback atop the steeds are 10 colorfully clad jockeys. Riding with them are enormous stakes for themselves and their civic patrons.
For three breathtaking, mud-spattered laps, the riders exhort their charges in a race known as the Palio -- a competition of the city's districts, or \o7contrade\f7. As the winner crosses the finish line, pandemonium erupts; members of the winning \o7contrada \f7leap from the stands, and the multitudes burst into tears, cheers and song. In the soft Tuscan twilight, the ancient square itself seems to shake and swell with excitement.
The Palio, which my family witnessed last year, is one of Europe's grand spectacles. Held twice each summer, it embodies this fabled city's history, passions and lore. But to the people of Siena, it is something more.
"The Palio is not a sporting competition; it's not a horse race," says Chiara Savoi, a Siena native and member of the \o7contrada \f7known as Lupa\o7,\f7 or She-wolf.
"It's something we feel inside. Is the horse race 75 seconds long? Yes. But if you win the Palio, you are the boss of the town. You can do whatever you want against the enemy \o7contrada\f7. It's the glory. The power. The tradition. The Palio is the soul of Siena."
To experience the Palio is to share, at least vicariously, in that glory and tradition. For fiercely proud Sienese, victories are so enduring that births, marriages and deaths are marked by who won that year's Palio. And the competition is so cutthroat that in the days before the race, fears abound of horses being drugged or jockeys bribed, and both are closely guarded.
During a honeymoon trip nearly two decades earlier, my wife, Katherine, and I found ourselves in Siena's main piazza one evening when the sound of song suddenly emanated from somewhere in the city's narrow streets. A boisterous procession marched into the square. We learned this was the Palio's winning \o7contrada \f7-- still celebrating a month later. We vowed one day to see the event itself.
We returned with our 11-year-old daughter, Julia, for the full Palio experience. After arriving two days before the August race, we watched two trials and attended a dinner with 900 members of the Lupa \o7contrada\f7.
