On the first Sunday of September, Greve in Chianti celebrate its “Palio” with “Rioni in Piazza”.

It is a competition within teams corrisponding to different parts of the village of Greve in Chianti and its surroundings. The competition is based on a parade with a theme, a tug-of-war for strong men and a sack race for teen agers. The jury judges the quality, the originality, and the coreagraphy of the parade. Furthermore it judges also the sport competition performances and regularity of the race.

The parades are always sumptous and every team develops an original concept after the theme. The theme for 2009 was: “European Myths and Legends”.  So we had parades of: Myth of Eldorado, Ancient Greek Myths, Myth of Lancelot and King Arthur, The Ring of the Nibelungen with a beatiful Wagner sound track, Celtic Myths, Lord of the Rings, etc.

The whole population of Greve in Chianti is involved in the preparation and in the parade. Most of the costumes are hand made and the luckiest teams have as supporters carpenters, blacksmiths, taylors, decorator at the disposal of creating fabolous cart. Everything is taken very seriously and I was really impressed by the interpretating capabilities of the people parading. It was funny to recognise professionals, decorators, civil servants, postmen, butchers, mechanics, brokers, bank accountants of Greve….in different clothes. Most of them have been working for Ancora del Chianti as well!

We do not know yet what will be the theme this year, but teams are already starting to re-organise to be ready for competing and having fun. A few weeks ago there was the meeting of Sant’Anna Team for deciding the subject for this year. Most of the picture here are under permission of its President, Mr Andrea Ceccatelli, the Knight- butcher and talented photographer. A big thank to Andrea for his generosity and kindness.

For more picture visit our Flickr Page: and have fun discovery more friends!