Giostra del Sacarino

So today we all went to the Giostra del Sacarino, the huge joust that happens every year in Arezzo that I spoke of in my previous post. We walked into town and arrived at the Duomo just in time for the beginning of the parade. Everyone who was involved in the joust dressed up in Renaissance attire and paraded through the streets with drummers and horn players and everything. It was like the Renaissance Fair, but real life. Everyone gathered around, wearing the colors of their quarter and cheered on their colors when they passed by.

Once the parade was over, we ran through the streets trying to find the entrance to our section for the joust. We went into the wrong entrance and had to go back and continue down the road, where we got stuck waiting for the parade to pass by again. We finally found an entrance for a "standing" section and got in, but soon realized we were on the wrong side. So in a sea of blue and yellow and purple and gold scarves, there were us silly Americans in our red and green. That was awkward. We found a spot to stand where we could see over all the people and waited for the joust to start. This was okay at first until more and more people started to pile in and eventually all of us got to the point were people were touching us on every side. Excitement really started when we started to hear the words "medic" and "docttore." We turned around to see what was going on behind us and come to find out a woman's water broke and she passed out. Luckily she was okay, and soon after the parade made it's way to the Piazza Grande, or where the joust was taking place.

Seeing all the Renaissance attire, horns, drums, horses, and people was so exhilarating. Then once the flag throwers started to perform, I was completely fascinated. In almost every Italian set movie I have seen, there has been some reference or scene of the "throwing of the flags." Being able to actually see this in person was incredible. Between the performers flipping off the flags and doing splits yet still throwing flags, I was very impressed. After that, they brought in all the horses and men participating the in joust and soon after the joust began. The way the joust was set up was the horse would come on one side and the jouster would try to hit the target on metal mannequin set up on the opposite side and they would be scored on how close they hit the target.

The group I was with stayed for about three of the jousts until we decided we were miserable and wanted to leave. There were so many people to the point where you could not move a centimeter anywhere. Also, there was a man in front of me, wearing a kilt, smoking a cigarette in my face. I understand being in close proximity is part of Italian culture, but for this American it was too much. So after the adventure of pushing our way out of that crazy crowd, we decided to find food.

We found a hamburger place. American food. Wonderful, American food. I cannot even explain the excitement we all had. We had our burgers and found another cute little gelato place called Sunflower and made our way back to the Accademia.

Even though not all of today could be considered "fun," it was an incredible experience.