Siena Events

The Palio, which is two days and also the whole year

Siena's calendar has two fixed points and they do not move: the Palio runs on 2 July, for the Madonna of Provenzano, and on 16 August, for the Assumption. Everything else in the city's year arranges itself around them.

The race itself is three laps of the Piazza del Campo and lasts under ninety seconds. Ten of the city's seventeen contrade run in each Palio, which is the first thing to understand: not all of them race, and which ten is itself a matter of rotation and lot. The four days before each race carry six trial races — the first on the evening the horses are assigned, the last on the morning of the Palio itself — plus the contrada dinners, which means the whole period is busier and more expensive than the race day alone.

Watching it

The centre of the square is free to stand in, and that is how most people watch. It fills hours in advance and cannot be left once full, so a place in the middle costs a long wait and a committed afternoon rather than money. The seats, balconies and windows around the square are private property, let privately, with no central box office. One access rule is firm: children may no longer stand in the middle of the piazza during the race and must watch from a stand or a window.

What the Palio does to the rest of the city

Practical consequences worth planning around. Rooms in the first days of July and the middle of August are in a different price category and sell out months ahead. And the cathedral cuts its hours to 10:00–18:00 from 22 to 24 June and from 5 to 13 August, so a visitor who came for the architecture and happened to arrive in the Palio window gets less of it.

The rest of the year

Outside the Palio, the thing to know is the cathedral's own calendar. From April to October the Opera della Metropolitana runs the Clavigero, the ceremonial opening of the cathedral at 7:15 am, which is the quietest and best way anyone will see that building. Mass is said on weekdays at 9:30 in the Madonna del Voto chapel and several times on Sundays and holidays, and visitor hours are built around it — the cathedral opens to visitors only at 13:30 on Sundays and public holidays.