PULL!!!!

I have been posting the last few days on the “Harvest Festival” in San Gimignano, also known as the Town of Towers. A lovely but a bit touristy town during the day, it is certainly worth the crowds on that special June weekend when all the area turns out for the Festival.

The contrada’s (neighborhoods) compete during a 2 day festival for the eventual winner of the golden sword. The different colored costumed town folks participate in many contests. My favorite and the crowd favorite is the tried and true…Tug Of War!

The first time we saw this we were amazed at the fact that it was standing room only to see this important event. One guy was an obvious town favorite as the crowd roared whenever he and his green team took center piazza. These guys are in full costume, including interesting (and slippery) shoes…

No gloves are used o this large old fashioned rope that just screams “splinters”! The guys huddle together working on the strategy against the other team. The Master of Ceremony holds the center of the rope, the horns blair and ….PULL …PULL….off they go.

It takes many rounds to determine the winner, as well as the placement of the losers. The men are very upset or joyful, hugs, kisses, or sitting with head in hand in amazement at the loss…This year proved to be no different…it seems whomever could stay on there feet had the victory. If one man feel to his knees, or slipped in his precious shoes the entire team went down like domino’s.

It is impossible to NOT cheer for a team-I was for the blue team (San Giovanni) the entire weekend, they won all the competitions leading up to the final riding contest….the women and the men had worked hard to take over every contest!

I love looking at the crowd cheer!

Here you see the lineleader at the start of the tug…must run the the end and become the anchor after a few second…I’ve never seen it done this way but it made even more exciting.