And the circus came to town….
Sunday, November 4th, 2018
I had mentioned earlier that I saw a circus tent in Piazza Maggiore – considered the very heart of the city. As circus tents go it was not very big and I’ve repeated the photo here.
Ooh, the circus is coming to town!Â
After it was there for about a week I noticed a booth near the entrance and asked about cost. They said it was free but this was the last day in Piazza Maggiore. They were moving at the end of that day to a park outside of the center. I took some information and went to the web site. Reservations were required and only by phone. Thankfully my Italian is good enough now that I succeeded in reserving for 3 nights for 2 each night and it turns out that I went with a different friend each time.
The first night was great. There were acrobats, a tight rope walker, a juggler, a clown of sorts, and lots of humor woven into the the circus acts. The tent was bigger but still not huge. One item of interest is that they welcomed children of all ages. The problem with that was that those very young, let’s say 3 or younger were very distracting and I think that the better policy would be to limit it to kids at least 6 years old. Some of the semi-humorous comments from a couple of performers indicated they they would agree.
Cute little youthful offender!
The clown, all about little bits of fire and small explosions.
One acrobatic act
A second acrobat
Acrobats with a BIG ball
Wire walker. A lot of humor in this act between the musicians and the walker
Woman in a BIG “hula hoop”. Really good and novel with strong reaction from the crowd
The second night was pretty much a bust. Almost all of the acts were aerial acrobats, non really exceptional and it was quite repetitive. So lets go straight to the third night. This was absolutely the best of all. A crazy band that was always there. Jugglers, aerial acrobats, more down to earth acrobats, bicycles, a lot of clowning around, i.e. humor woven into the acts. It really was spectacular.
The line to get in and the tent.
The band
Acrobats using poles (also the second one in the background). There were 4 people involved.
Another big “hula hoop” – a guy this time and even better than the woman the first night.
3 on a bike. Missed the photo of the third person standing on the shoulders of the second.
More acrobats – 2 columns of 3 persons
Another acrobat
Of course I missed lots of photo opportunities (especially the 3 jugglers). Due to low light and motion there are lot of blurred photos but I think that you get the idea. Also there were no young tykes running around which was a plus.
The tickets were FREE!! At the end of each show they encourage people to make donations as they exit and I did.
There was a little bit of pre-performance entertainment while in the line to get in. There was a dog that was just crazy for the game of “return the stick”. You know that game; throw the stick, the dogs gets it and returns it. So his partners in the game had left so he came to the line looking for someone else. I accepted the challenge. After 5 or 6 rounds I realized that this would never end so the next time he brought the stick back I turn to the guy behind me, handed him the stick and said “your turn”. He accepted and continued with the dog, then passed it on back. When everyone was in the tent, after awhile the dog also came in with a stick in his mouth but was shooed back out.
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