The story
Festa dei Ceri Gubbio in Gubbio
On 15 May, three teams hoist towering wooden pillars called ceri, each topped with a statue of a patron saint, and run them at speed through Gubbio's medieval streets and up Monte Ingino to the Basilica of Sant'Ubaldo. The finishing order never changes: Sant'Ubaldo first, San Giorgio second, Sant'Antonio Abate third. Rivalry lies in stamina and style, not in who crosses the line ahead of whom.
Three wooden pillars shaped like elongated octagonal prisms, each crowned with a statue of a saint, race through the streets of Gubbio every fifteenth of May in honor of Sant'Ubaldo, the city's twelfth-century bishop and patron.