Want to travel back in time? Just visit this Italian town

Witnessing a centuries-old jousting festival in the Tuscan town of Arezzo is a great way to go back in time.

What? $450 for jousting sticks? Tell him he's dreamin'," I say to myself as horse-mounted knights parade past us, each holding a jousting stick that couldn't be worth more than $250.

I keep this amusing aside to myself. The kids haven't seen The Castle yet, and anyway they're too busy taking in the colourful scenes in this tightly packed town square, festooned with flags and filled with the sounds of drums and trumpets, to indulge Dad and his little jokes.

We're squished into a metal grandstand in the hot late-afternoon sun in the centre of Arezzo in Tuscany. We've come especially for the second of two jousting tournaments held each year. It's September and the weekend of the Giostra del Saracino (Joust of the Saracen).

Our family of four is joining the crowds here not because we're complete history dorks (though my wife and kids dispute that in my case). But we do love old towns like this. And on this day we're discovering how vividly a period festival brings them to life.

This festival claims origins way back to the 1500s. It's been held in this current form since the 1930s. It's now hard to imagine a time when it won't be held in Arezzo, so utterly it is embraced by the people who live here. For the days of the festival they suspend their ordinary lives as public servants or teachers or hairdressers to live and celebrate like their forebears. This isn't the realm of the medievalist weirdos you might see swinging flails at each other in your local park. Here it's the central identity of the town and its residents of every social standing. And good on them, I think, admiring them in their glinting armour and fancy hats. To be honest, I'm quite jealous.

A surprising pleasure of this festival is how few concessions are made to English-speaking visitors like us. People are friendly, sure, but there's no spoken or written explanation of events, except in Italian. You might choose to be frustrated by this or you could treat it as essentially a time-travel simulation. The way we see it, were we actually transported back in time 600 years, even to England, no one would understand us, nor would we understand them. So feeling an alien by dint of language just adds to the sense of immersion in the past. You channel your inner Bill & Ted and enjoy your bewilderment.

During festival time, Arezzo, a pretty town which you'll find about an hour-and-a-half-drive south of Florence, wears the fabric of its past with pride. The towers that loom over the squares are adorned with shields and flags. It feels an idealised rendering of the period, but not in a cheesy Disney way.

The jousting competition pits against each other the pride of the four quarters of the town, each identifiable by their pageant colours. Without knowing the first thing about the rivalries, we each pick a team, buy the merch and start trash talking to each other. "Porta Crucifera is hopeless," one of the kids says, mocking my choice. "Santo Spirito are losers," I reply, making an L on my forehead, a symbol well recognised by eight-year-olds now if not in 1500.

We spend the hours before the contest wandering the streets, browsing shops and market stalls, drinking a spritz or two and following the sounds of drums or trumpets to packed out piazzas, where rituals like the "blessing of the knights" take place.

In the afternoon a huge parade takes place. Acrobats toss flags into the air in a whirl of colour. Knights, musicians, crossbow-armed soldiers and small parties of nobles from each district go by. They're convincingly in character. Is that a look of contempt that mounted knight gives me, poor peasant that I am in my travel pants and Birkenstocks?

To see the jousting tournament itself requires a ticket, which we bought weeks earlier. We get there early. Eventually the jousting contestants arrive, accompanied by soldiers and musicians from their quarter, who take up positions as rowdy supporters at ground level. Confirming it's an event for the whole town, groups of teenagers from one district jeer at the teens of another. Toilet rolls are thrown. It's a real hoot.

The competition is fierce. We figure out just enough to follow the action. After several rounds of full-gallop charges at the target a winner is decided and our eight-year-old stands in triumph. Her team, Santo Spirito, wins. It's euphoria for the gold and blue in the square. As other districts' supporters trudge off, we find ourselves joining a victory procession that takes us all the way into the cathedral, where singing and chanting turn an ordinarily quiet place of worship into a raucous victory party. It's contagious and, though we're interlopers on this celebration, we enjoy this stolen moment. It's like someone else's team's won the grand final and you've jumped on their bandwagon.

It's these fond memories of Arezzo that inspire our visit a few years later to the French town of Puy-en-velay for the "King of the Bird" Renaissance festival. Instead of the lance, the weapon of choice here is the bow.

The enthusiasm for costumes is really something at this one. While some younger people might get about in something closer to what you'd order from an online shop, their better-off elders look magnificent in furs and rich fabrics, leather and chain mail. You get the impression these outfits are built up over years or maybe decades, perhaps prized items passed down a generation.

The festival's purpose is to crown the King of the Bird, who tradition says is spared paying taxes for the next year. On the first day, all comers can try their skills at archery. That night, the best performers are invited to compete in the finals. The winner - who manages to shoot a plasticine chicken-looking bird in the middle of the target - is crowned as king.

Read more on Explore:

Festival that take you back.

Giostra del Saracino (Joust of the Saracen) in Arezzo, Italy: Held on the third or fourth Saturday in June and the first Sunday in September, see discovertuscany.com/arezzo

Roi de l'Oiseau (King of the Bird Festival), Puy-en-Velay, France: Held in the third week of September, see roideloiseau.com

Romans and Carthaginians Fiesta, Cartagena, Spain: Held in the middle weeks of September, see spanish-fiestas.com/carthaginians-romans-festival-cartagena

Pictures: Shutterstock; John-Paul Moloney