The festival takes place in Passignano, a village beside Lake Trasimeno, in the last week in July. It is a recreation of the last moments of Perugia's civil war, in 1945. A small group of the Oddi family were forced to flee from the Passignano Castle carrying their boats for fear that the Baglioni and Della Corgna families would capture them. Today, the Palio is a competition between four neighbourhoods. Each neighbourhood has a team with some 40 participants. The race is very difficult and is made up of three phases. In the first phase they must row back to the banks of the lake. Secondly they have to run up the steep narrow streets with the boats on their shoulders. Finally they have to go back down to the water. The boat palio is a unique spectacle each year and is definitely worth going to watch.
