After a few years of absence Rionilandia returns to Faenza. And at the Rioni Civic Center in via Sant’Orsola 31, throughout the afternoon of May 5th, games, entertainment, food stands and performances by young local flag-wavers and knights are scheduled. The event, the first official this year with all the protagonist districts, is in fact organized in collaboration with the Municipality of Faenza and the Palio del Niballo Committee, the Cooperativa Dei Manfredi and the Youth District Committee.
The initiative, whose first edition was held in 1996, is not only a country festival that offers everyone, children, young people and adults, the opportunity to spend a cheerful afternoon in nature, but it is also an opportunity to the organizers, to raise awareness, through games, of the beautiful structure of the Civic Center where the five districts prepare for equestrian activities, all 365 days a year.
“This is an event open to everyone, from 3pm to 6pm – says Stefano Fantinelli, who a few months ago became president of the Cooperativa dei Manfredi which manages the Civic Center –. The detailed program is still being defined but we will certainly have it carried out at 5.30pm , in the large square, a performance for the young local riders will be a succession of various activities: there will be the possibility of trying to ride a horse and there are games planned with tickets for the Bigorda up for grabs”. And from 2pm, access to the street leading to the Civic Center will be closed for cars that will be parked in the square in Via Graziola. The organizers invite you to participate by bicycle.
“For a few weeks – continues Fantinelli -, we have started a series of interventions to make the facility more welcoming and more usable by local riders, we have made the Palio test track and the Otto da Quintana accessible and more suitable for horses, where a material indicated by an agronomist was brought which made the soil more friable; other improvements concern the hedges of the horse training rings, gardens, as well as the irrigation system which has been modernized”. “The agreement we have with the Municipality of Faenza for the management of the plant will expire on December 31st and, in due course, will be discussed again for the future. In any case – continues Fantinelli – we have already proposed to the Municipality that we can create, in land adjacent to the stables, a new track, a new facility (it was already used by the local knights but had unsuitable terrain, ed.) to be able to gallop in complete safety, and on suitable terrain, for the knights of the five districts or others who will come to visit the stables”. “the place is where the paliodrome was supposed to be built, a project apparently shelved at the moment. It would be an oval track, but at the moment it is a hypothesis for the future”.
Gabriele Garavini
