Bay Area Renaissance Festival

Our plan today was to drive back down to Tarpon Springs and spend a bit more time birding, but the best-laid plans of mice and men...
Our friend Leslie messaged me that they had discovered that there was going to be a Belly Dancing Competition at the Renaissance Festival in Tampa at 3 o'clock this afternoon, and did we want to join them? (Bill and Forry had both complained that there was no belly-dancing at the Greek restaurant we went to last week...) The Faire was about an hour's drive for us and we arrived about the same time as Bill and Leslie.

Leslie has been working on her Renaissance/Steampunk costume for some time now. We had seen pieces of it, but this is the first time we've seen it all put together --

I really like the hat she found for it --

The Faire is held every year over about a two month period in February and March. It is an interesting mixture of costumed and uncostumed people with many takes on what costumes might have been appropriate for a medieval era. These folks were part of the "Queen's Court" dining.

We listened to some troubadours --

And a harpist --

And a fairy fiddler --

 All before we got to the competition that we had come to see --

There was a competition for Juniors. Some of whom were REALLY good!

Of course, the young ones were really limber and agile --

The Senior competition featured some incredible costumes --

A couple even complete with swords --

There was lots of shimmying and shaking going on --

This lady was described as a "Goddess" dancer. I think that meant she was older...

There was a troupe of competitors from a dance school --

And even a pair of "Goth" belly dancers -- who were actually very good.

This is another of the dancing pairs --

And as you can see, all were carefully watched by the man in my life --

At the end of the show, we were treated to a couple of the "professional" gypsy dancers who have their own stage and show at the Festival --

The Festival had horses and jousting competitions, though we didn't have a chance to watch any.

This lady had been giving rides to little kids earlier --

I liked the way she (or someone) had braided her horse's tail --

There was a wandering knight and his lady --

And a Saracen?

Before we left, we went to the "Washing Wenches" show --

You really didn't want to be sitting too close to the front as these two washer women shared a bit of their wash water with the crowd --

Don't you just love the hairdo? to say nothing of the blacked out teeth...

Our dear friend Bill added to the hilarity by bringing them a beer -- after they had teased him about bringing one to Forry.

And  then there was this long-eared fellow with the strange helmet --

We had never been to a Renaissance Faire before and it was an interesting experience. In the four hours or so that we were there, we only saw maybe a quarter of it. It's sprawled out over quite a large wooded area with at least five different stage areas. There are lines of tents and vendors of all kinds of costumes, jewelry and art as well as lots of food. There were magicians and jugglers, mud wrestlers, singers, and I don't know what else. There are people who make the faires their hobby and spend their time following them similarly to the Native American PowWow circuit.