La Luminara!

This evening, Friday July 16th, 2006 was a very special illuminated evening in Pisa, Italy. In fact, the most wonderful Pisan night of the year! It's the celebration of the city's patron saint: la festa di San Ranieri. The event is called "LA LUMINARA" - it's a folk festival which dates back to 1688. We mingled amongst 70,000 wax candles, which were all put in glasses and hung on the wooden frames of houses along the Arno River, and even sent floating along the Arno River. People wandered along Ponte di Mezzo and along the Lungarno enjoying pizza, pisa, and CECINA, a lovely garbanzo bean thin pizza-ish food.

Tomorrow, Saturday June 17th, the four main "rione" or areas of Pisa will be competing in a Regatta boat race along the Arno. The Palio will conclude with a winner who gets the "paliotto" prize. Accompanying this event will be loads of Pisans dressed in traditional medieval outfits parading around.

Then on July 2nd, there is an annual meeting on the main bridge for a "reverse tug-of-war". There are two teams of ten men and they push and push and push until one team pushes the other team off. A local Pisan woman told me that historically, they played until one team fell of the bridge into the river, but it's since been modified.