Monte Wk 3: Barrel Race

This past week was very interesting. It began with Montepulciano's biggest celebration of the year, and ended with... a long stretch of nothing. But that will change once we get to Rome.

The Barrel Race, known as Bravìo delle Botti, occurs every year on the last Sunday of August. It is by far the biggest celebration in the town. I noticed that the population of the town seemed to grow steadily in the weeks leading up to the race. Nights in the town were full of Contrada dinners, music, flag throwing, sword fights and more. I was getting so hyped for the festival to finally happen.

The day of the race was crazy. I wanted to go up to the fortezza to watch a soccer game before the race started, but when I got out to the main road, it was completley blocked off for a parade. I was finally able to make my way around the back side of the parade, and up to the piazza via backroads so that I could avoid the rest of the parade. I decided to skip the soccer game and just meet up with my professors and classmates for the race viewing party in Dr. Noiset's room. The professors did a great job with the snacks and drinks.

We watched most of the race on the tiny television pictured above. As you can see, there was a massive crowd of people standing in the piazza grande for the race. Luc's apartment was right around the corner from the piazza, so we had the perfect view of the last stretch of the race. It was amazing to see the parade march righ past the window, and experience such an important tradition in this city's culture. Drummers, flag throwers, kings, queens, knights and more marched past our window and into the piazza to mark the begginging of the race.

As soon as the parade finished, the barrel racers moved into position at the starting point at the bottom of the hill. The city began playing replays of barrel races from previous years to kill time until the race was ready to begin. Many of us decided to put 2 euros on the contrada we believed would win. I put a coin in for Gracciano, the contrada in which I am living. Once the race started, everyone was going crazy cheering for their respective teams, but in the end, Voltaire won in a landslide. My contrada ended in fourth place out of eight teams.

We had a fantastic view of the race

After the race, the town pretty much emptied out. The professors said it would be like a ghost town after Sunday, but I did not think that the town would clear out this fast. The town is so much quieter now. I wish that I had more to report for this week's blog, but after the festival, nothing really happened. I like the change, though. I much prefer peace and quiet. All around, it was a great week.