contrade - Lili on the Loose

Souvenir Saturday: Siena Palio Contrade Banner

The Palio is a 90 second horse race in Siena, Italy that takes place twice a year in the heart of the city at Piazza del Campo. It is a race for honor and prestige for the winer representing one of the 17 Contrade (districts) within the city. Of the 17 Contrade, only 10 are randomly chosen to participate in the race. They then go on to get randomly assigned a horse, and then must find a jockey to represent them. There are very few rules to the Palio, its sort of a "anything goes" and rivalry between the different

Souvenir Saturday: Its Smaller on the Outside

By Lili|March 8th, 2014|Categories: Souvenirs, Travel|Tags: 2009, at the heart of it Ireland 2009, castle, CIE, Coat of Arms, coins, collectable, collection, contrade, contrade of Siena, Doctor Who, Dublin, euro, Europe, exchange money, flag, group, Ireland, large, memento, memories, shopping, Siena, souvenir, tour, tour group, travel|0 Comments

I was on my last afternoon in Ireland, and had a lot of euro coins left over. Knowing that my bank won't exchange coins, was buying random souvenirs as gifts. One of the last items I bought was a small county flag of Dublin, Ireland. I had seen them around while traveling and they reminded me of the flags of the different contrade of Siena. But when I returned home and open the package, I found that this 7 euro flag, was not a small flag. But it was actually the size of a traditional flag (about the size of a