We’re in Alba, in the northwestern corner of Italy. We arrived this afternoon, checked in to our hotel, and headed out on foot to explore our new surroundings. At the local Tourist Information Center, we made an appointment to visit a small wine producer tomorrow. We have one more task to accomplish today. We want to buy tickets to the donkey races.
Today is Friday. The donkey races will be held Sunday. I had read that having tickets in advance is necessary, because they sell out every year without fail. That makes sense, because who would want to miss out on donkey races?
The Palio
You may be wondering, how did Alba’s donkey races come to be? They arose out of something like a sibling rivalry between two cities. For hundreds of years, certain Italian cities have been famous for their horse races. The word for “horse race” in italian is “palio.” The most famous palio is held in Siena.
The reason it’s so well-known is because it’s not a regular horse race like we have back home. It’s not held at a race track. In a palio, they race right in the center of town.
The town of Siena, for example, has an unusually large town square, or piazza. When it’s time for the palio, they bring in fencing and create a track around the piazza. In the Siena palio, they race around the piazza for three laps.
The race isn’t between owners who are rich enough to buy the fastest horses and hire the best jockeys. The race is between the ten-or-so neighborhoods of the city. Each neighborhood enters a horse and rider, and they compete neighbor versus neighbor.
It’s Neighbor versus Neighbor
Each neighborhood has its own colors, symbols, and costumes, like a sports team. Costumes are based on those worn in the middle ages. The whole spectacle becomes a celebration of medieval times.
Race day starts off with a parade through the city streets. Neighborhoods try to out-do each other to see who has the coolest outfits, best-looking horses, handsomest men, and of course, the fairest damsels.
The festivities take over the town. People come from all over to see the pageantry and join in the mirth and merriment. Aye! Finally the festivities lead up to the horse race itself, right there in the piazza in the center of town.
Another well-known palio is held in the town of Asti. Asti is just down the road from Alba. Asti is sort of like Alba’s older sibling that, throughout history, got first choice of everything and never had to wear hand-me downs. So of course it figures that Asti would have an awesome palio, but not little Alba.
So what could Alba do to put itself on the map? Since Asti is so close, it didn’t make sense for Alba to have a palio, too. The city fathers-of-old must have scratched their heads for a long time before someone came up with the answer. What could set Alba apart from Asti?
The Meeting
I imagine the council meeting must have lasted late into the night. They probably moved the meeting to a tavern to continue the discussion. Without a doubt, a great deal of wine was consumed.
At some point, someone, probably halfway joking, blurted out, “We could have a donkey race!”
At first they all had a great laugh. Ho ho ho! They pelted the vocal councilman with chicken bones and table scraps. (Ah, those were the days, eh?)
But the more they thought about it, the better the idea sounded. One by one, each councilman got on board, and they decided to do it. A short time later, the sun came up.
It would be just a like other palios, where each neighborhood has its own colors, costumes, and horse and rider. They’d have a big parade through the center of town. They’d even have a pageant, where each neighborhood would compete to see who can put on the most entertaining mini-stage play.
Best of all, it would be impossible to take donkey races too seriously, so the whole thing would be way more fun than the Asti palio. And so the Donkey Races of Alba came to be. It was a great idea. Now we just have to get tickets.
But You Need to Have a Ticket
We were told we could purchase tickets at a place outside of the town center, but within walking distance. We set out to find it. Pretty soon we were near where we thought it was supposed to be.
We found ourselves in some kind of a park, with a few buildings scattered around. They looked liked school buildings, but this place didn’t look like a school. There were no indications that tickets of any kind were being sold anywhere around here.
Some empty concession stands stood nearby, as if a fair had recently been held here. A group of high school-age kids were hanging out there. We decided to walk over and ask them if they knew where we could get tickets to the donkey races. This should be a good test of my italiano, eh?
To be continued…
