Il Palio delle Barche at Passignano sul Trasimeno

The Palio of the Boats is an annual festival held at Passignano sul Trasimeno on Lago Trasimeno. The featured event is the boat race however there is an eight day programme that includes food, music, fireworks and other entertainment. This was our second year at this palio event; the boat race has been happening for 33 years.

We arrived in plenty of time for the 4 pm historic parade, finding a curb side spot with some shade. It was 34 degrees and definitely not the day to be wearing velvet. The costumes are magnificent but also heavy to wear, thick and very hot ... but the show must go on.

There are four rione in Passignano sul Trasimeno and they compete in several events to win the palio, or flag, for the year. San Donato, Centro Storico, Centro 2 and Oliveto all represented their rione in the parade.

There wasn't the same musical content this year, just drummers.

The parade doesn't just represent the upper classes in velvet gowns but also the workers and tradespeople, in this case farmers and fishermen especially. So there are roles for men in the parade.

Having taken over one hundred photos last year I went for a different angle this year; here are some of the cute kids in the parade.

Time for cool drinks and gelati before finding a good spot for the 6.30 pm boat race. 

Each rione has one boat with two men rowing and a female runner. Additionally they have a team of 60 runners in costume for the second part of the race. As last year, the water became quite choppy as race time neared.

The boats row across the lake front and around a buoy then back to the pier. Here the flag bearing girl gets out of the boat and runs to the street where she hands over the rione flag.

Once the flag has been passed to the new runner the large team of men run another upturned boat around a circuit of the streets, swapping places as needed, until they return to the starting point. The flag is passed back to the girl who runs back to the boat.

The boat and the girl with the flag are then rowed on to the finish line.

Bravi San Donato!

We were exhausted from all that rowing and running so we came back home and went to L' Oca Brucante in Paciano for a pizza. A zucchini flower and mozzarella pizza like this is something you will not find in Australia! Thin, crisp and delicious.