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Updated: What is Italy’s Palio di Siena and where can you watch it?

Italy's hotly-anticipated Palio di Siena horse race is back - but what exactly is it and where can you watch it?

Published: 16 August 2024 12:10 CEST
Jockeys ride their horses in the iconic Palio di Siena race
Jockeys ride their horses in the iconic Palio di Siena race, held twice a year. Photo by Carlo BRESSAN / AFP

The renowned Palio di Siena horse race returns on Saturday, August 17th, with jockeys racing it out in Tuscany’s medieval jewel, Siena.

With origins dating back to 1633, the Palio di Siena is Italy’s most famous historic horse race.

The event is a competition between the neighbourhoods of Siena, called contrade, with each contrada having its own coat of arms and patron saints. There are 17 contrade in Siena, but only 10 compete – this year’s competitors are; Chiocciola, Oca, Istrice, Selva, Lupa, Valdimontone, Onda, Nicchio, Leocorno and Civetta.

It occurs twice a year in Siena’s main square, Piazza del Campo. The first race took place this summer on July 2nd. Each Palio lasts a total of four days; three days of celebrations and the final day being the race itself.

The race consists of three laps of Piazza del Campo. The starting point (the mossa), is made up of two ropes in which the 10 participating horses and jockeys must wait in order. The horse, with or without a jockey, which completes the three laps first wins.

The prize is a large silk-painted canvas, known as the drappellone, which is designed and created every year by a different artist.

Over the centuries, the race has only been cancelled a handful of times, including for World War II and the Covid pandemic. 

In recent years the Palio has been the subject of protest from animal rights groups who state that the horses suffer during the competition. Preliminary investigations into a defamation trial began at the start of June this year, after Walter Caporale, the national president of animal rights group Animalisti Italiani (Italian Animalists) was accused of defining the event’s organisers as “sadistic and uncivilised.” The next hearing is set for February 28th 2025. 

The final race this year was supposed to take place on Friday, 16th August but it was cancelled due to heavy rain.

Watch the Palio di Siena live on television or via streaming on Italian channel LA7 from 4.45pm on Saturday.

Are you tuning in to the Palio di Siena? Let us know what you think about it in the comments below.

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LIVING IN ITALY

How to find a storage space for your belongings in Italy

If you need to temporarily store some of your belongings because you’re moving home, refurbishing, or running out of space at your property, there are a number of storage options available in Italy.

Published: 29 August 2024 13:54 CEST
How to find a storage space for your belongings in Italy

Generally speaking, Italian homes aren’t the most spacious.

According to data from real estate portal Immobiliare.it, the average Italian home has 81 square metres of floor space.

For context, that’s 56 square metres less than in Denmark, which comes first in Europe for average floor space with 137 sqm. The figure is also significantly lower than in France (112 sqm), Germany (109) and Spain (97).

All of that is to say that, while living in Italy, you may not have a lot of space to store all of your personal belongings at home.

Granted, many houses and apartment blocks come with storage rooms – these may be located underground (known as cantine or scantinati in Italian) or in the attic (soffitta) – which you can use to pile up all the belongings you’re not using at a particular moment in time.

But if you’re permanently leaving your home and need a place for some, if not all, of your kitchen appliances, furniture and other personal belongings, you may no longer have access to a storage room. And if you don’t have another place to ship your stuff to, this can be pretty challenging. 

Luckily, there are plenty of storage options available in Italy.

Rent a storage room from a private owner

If you visit Idealista, Immobiliare.it or any other of Italy’s main property websites, you’ll find listings from private owners looking to rent out a storage room. 

Generally speaking, you’ll need to head to the affitto (‘rent’) section of the website, select the magazzino or deposito (‘storage room’) option from a drop-down menu, and then type in the relevant area, as shown by the screengrab below.

A screengrab of the homepage of Italy's Immobiliare.it website

A screengrab of the homepage of Italy’s Immobiliare.it website. Source: Immobiliare

Depending on size and location of the storage room, you can expect to pay anything from €50 to €300-400 a month. 

When renting from a private owner, you’ll need to sign a rental contract for storage purposes (contratto di locazione di immobile ad uso cantina, soffitta, magazzino). 

This will in most cases require you to pay a security deposit, but will offer you legal protection and security under Italian law. 

The owner will be responsible for registering the contract with Italy’s tax office (Agenzia delle Entrate).

Remember: it’s strongly advisable to ask the owner all of the pertinent questions regarding security, mould, insect infestations and any other condition that could damage your belongings before agreeing to renting the space.  

Rent a storage space from a company

Companies specialising in storage space are often called ditte di magazzinaggio or deposito,  or, in recent years, ditte di self-storage, using the English name.

The benefits of using a professional company over renting from a private owner is that they offer a wide range of storage sizes tailored to your needs, and they’re likely to have facilities which are properly protected from the elements and break-ins.

READ ALSO: What are the rules on moving household goods to Italy?

Casaforte and Easybox are the leaders of the self-storage market in Italy but are not available in smaller cities and towns around the peninsula.

Luckily, in recent years, a growing number of companies specialised in self-storage have started operating in smaller urban centres.

This means that a simple Google search with ditta di self storage paired with the name of your town (or the relevant postal code) will in most cases produce several useful results. 

When looking for the best option, don’t forget to shop around for good prices and offers, and read as many customer reviews as possible.

Once again, storage prices can vary greatly depending on the area of the country, as well as the size of your storage room.

Generally speaking, prices start at €1-1.5 per day for the smaller sizes (around 5 sqm) but can climb to €5 or more per day for large spaces (15-20 sqm).

Use a moving company to store your belongings

If you only need to store your things while you’re between houses, you can hire a moving company (ditta or società di traslochi) which will provide door-to-door delivery service and keep your things secure between move-out and move-in dates.

Gosselin, AGS Mover, Bolliger and Crown Relocations are some of the most well-known international moving companies operating in Italy that also offer storage space.

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