Davide Cassenti

Last Sunday the Palio delle Contrade has finished: the weekend was full of funny games, both for children and adults, and people preparing the decorations. Saturday evening was the time of the competition with the agnolotti and the dance competition.

In the first game, one guy had to eat as more agnolotti as he could, but without using his hands: a girl, in front of him and with a bend on her eyes, had to take them with a spoon and give them to the partner. The winner had all of them (45) in just 2 minutes and 15 seconds.

The evening concluded with music and the dance competition, with a little accident for my contrada, some professional dancers showing their performances and lot of music.

Sunday morning started very badly: the sky was covered by grey clouds and a little rain started to fall while people were putting decorations in the streets. It looked like the day would have been spoiled by the bad weather, but at midday the Sun came back over our heads: we finished to prepare decorations and we take out our beautiful reproduction of an old church that was there many years ago; at 3pm the last games started.

There are 5 contrade in Portalbera and in each of them there was a different game, the first one in the contrada dei Rili, the orange one: some children had to take some water from a pool with a sponge and put it in a bucket. The 2 girls representing the home team won against lot of little boys – and this will let them joking at them for long long time.

We moved to the contrada dei Pioppi, the green one, for a game titled il percorso della pace (something like the peace course), a obstacle course in the playing field of our little town. There were some protests here, but at last the game was won by the home team.

Time to go to the contrada del Castello, the pink one, for a game for the older people: some old women had to make the longest wool ball in 15 minutes. I believe I would never be able to be so fast. The forth game was in the contrada del Cassinotto, the blue one: a child’s scooter race around the little contrada.

The last game was in my road, in the contrada dei Santi, the red one: a 3km relay race, with 3 runners per team. Our team was last, but my sister was the youngest player of this game and did a great performance: her first race, lot of supporters screaming her name and a little fright when she arrived, feeling little bad for the tiredness. Nothing serious, after the race we were ready to watch the last game, the most traditional and old one: the palo della cuccagna.

The goal of this last game is to climb over an high pole in the less time. Not everyone could get on top, but this game decided the winner of the competition: the Rili, with a good performance in this game.

My contrada did not a good job in these games, but we didn’t lose completely: a second competition was the one for the best decorations and the best allegorical float, which was won by us. Do you agree?