Siena and the Palio (practice)

St. Domenica Catherine Basilica outside the front door of our Siena apartment. Che Bella!

Fanaticos gather for the Palio, from windows, portable bleachers, in processions of chanting, singing neighbors, and all in their Siena district colors and scarves.

The campo begins to fill for a Monday night practice of the ten rider horse race held for many of the last 700 years, yes, since the 1300s!

The fans come in all ages.

The Valdez-Yeager foursome smack in the middle of the campo.

Ten teams, ten color combinations, ten horses all ridden bareback for three laps around the campo's pressed earth course in a clockwise direction.  The course, like the city, is irregularly shaped and rises and falls just like the elevations of a walk through Siena.

Youth supporters of this year's ten teams fill one side of the bleachers in their team colors.

A cannon blast, probably an M-5000, and they're off.  Oops! There are 10 horses and only four riders for this practice run. At least one team is worried.

The geometry of the Sienese skyline during our walk to dinner.  There is not a flat or straight street anywhere. There are no sidewalks in the city center nor no vehicle traffic allowed after 5:30. It is a magnificent place to walk, stroll, and amble surrounded by 4 story buildings all mostly five to six hundred years old.