Adventures in Italy, part uno.

What a postcard, a 500-year old horse race and two Italians taught me about community.

Both kids had the same spring break this year so we finally took the trip to Italy we’d been trying to make happen since before the pandemic. We only had a week, but it was magical, pasta-filled and chock full of special moments I’m just now starting to unpack.

Here’s one.

I love old letters and postcards so while we were exploring Siena, a gorgeous village in Tuscany, I was stopped in my tracks by a rack of old postcards sitting outside a small shop. Clutching a few cards, I ventured into the shop to see what other treasures might await and found a slim bearded man having what sounded like a robust conversation in Italian with the shop owner.

This is Fabrizio and Andreas

I would learn that Andreas, the customer, was half Swiss and half Sienese and was home visiting. When I entered, he saw what I had in my hand which I didn’t realize was a postcard advertising the Palio di Sienna, a 500-year old horse race that is as embedded in the culture of Sienna as the cobblestone streets.

He and Fabrizio, the shop owner, explained to me - in a jubilant combination of English and Italian - that Siena is divided into contrada, or neighborhoods, and that for the past five centuries, these neighborhoods have competed in a horse race twice each summer.

You might be thinking, oh how quaint. How lovely.

No, it’s neither. What it is, Andreas explained, is essential. The year, the Sienese life revolves around it. Il Palio is the fabric of the village. It determines fates. For example they say, Andreas is considered a lucky person because his contrade, which like all seventeen contrada is represented by specific colors and a mascot (his being the crested porcupine), last won the race in 2008. Whereas, Fabrizio’s contrade hasn’t won since the late 1990’s.

Ah, the misfortune, says Fabrizio in Italian, his head down.

We all bow our heads, commiserating with Fabrizio, our acquaintance of five minutes, but now, our comrade, our friend. Yes the misfortune, we all feel in our hearts for Fabrizio.

Andreas confides to us that he is still devastated that the year his contrade Istrci won, he did not come home to Siena for the race. He missed it: the 90-second, three lap horse race around the piazza that this village has built their lives, their community upon. Istrici had won and he had missed it.

Again, we bowed our heads. What a missed moment, we say with our bodies and our hearts.

Andreas is suddenly cheered by an idea, running toward a box of postcards in the corner of the shop. He says something to Fabrizio in Italian and digs deeper into the box, pulling out this postcard victoriously and handing it to me.

This is my contrade, he says to me proudly. Istrici. Now you will always be a fan of the Istrici. Now, you will remember us. I will buy this for her, he says to Fabrizio, tossing a Euro onto the counter, a big smile on his face.

Yes, Andreas, I will always be a fan. I will remember you and the Istrici. And I will remember that everywhere we step, underneath us lie millions of threads connecting us to one another, simply waiting to be discovered, waiting to be picked up. I will remember that community is everywhere, should we choose to look

This is why we travel. That, and the pasta.

For more on the Il Palio, check out: