Here some image I take on the "Palio dl'Urmon" of Robbio (PV),Italy.

I go there the 2 of september ,of this year,and was a very nice show...

Here the second part .

Palio dl'Urmon's old website had many galleries of pictures of the barefoot "mondine" parade, but sadly these galleries have disappeared from the current website!
Most of the girls in the parade are indeed barefooted, but most of them are also underage, which is a huge turn-off to me..

"MONDINE" were female agricultural workers which manually cleaned rice paddies from weeds until the early 70s in the northern plains of Italy (we had "mondine" also in the area where I was born and raised). Rising labour costs sparked the diffusion of chemical weed killers, and the "mondina" ceased to exist as a job...

The "mondine" all came from poor families, so they could not afford buying water-proof boots to work in the paddies... they ALWAYS WORKED BAREFOOTED. Most of them actually went around barefooted also outside the paddies..
"Mondine" were of all ages (from teenagers to 60 and beyond), and not all of them were attractive, of course.. but indeed there was plenty of hot young women among them!!!

There is a famous Italian movie of the late 40s called "RISO AMARO" ("Bitter Rice") which was entirely about the "mondine".. starring Italian sex-bomb actress SILVANA MANGANO, and male international movie stars RAF VALLONE and VITTORIO GASSMAN.
It's one of my favorite Italian movies.. no wonder, as it is a CORNUCOPIA OF FEMALE BAREFOOTING!!!
I put a link to the original movie trailer hereunder.

TRAILER of the movie "RISO AMARO", with PLENTY of BAREFOOTED "MONDINE" ;-)

I warmly recommend to watch the movie!!!

Many thanks to Clipper for highlighting this interesting example of "OLD-STYLE ITALIAN BAREFOOTING"!!!

Feetosopher,thanks for the complete description.

My great-grandmother was a "mondina" for many years.

The "original mondine",were peasant,field workers,always barefeet everywere,from the begin of april to the middle of october...

But the rice cleaning and harvesting were the hardest work to do...not for the barefeet,they were used to this,but for the working position (always curved) and condition (under the sun with the reverb and humidity of the water).

But for reach some money more they done this...

The parade of Robbio's Palio dl'Urmon is beautiful from this aspect : many young girls barefeet in parade for about 2 hour.

If someone know some other event like this please let us to know.

For the next Palio we have to wait next year,the first week of september...

Dear friend,
many thanks for your interesting additions!!!

I have something very personal to share, always concerning "mondine".. the first woman ever to let me worship her feet was actually.. a former "mondina"!!!
I was 11 (so it was many years ago, sadly!!! ).. the woman (who was in her 40s at the time) had been a mondina in her youth, but had to quit for the reasons I mentioned (all rice paddy owners in the area had turned to herbicides).
She began to work as a hired housekeeper (cleaning floors, washing and ironing clothes etc.), and worked also in my house. Usually from March to October included, due to her past experience as mondina, she kicked off her sandals and worked barefooted most of the time.. this obviously got me really excited!!!
She was a good-looking woman with big breasts, her feet were very powerful.. one day that I was alone at home with her I took all the courage I had (I was a very shy kid!!! ), and asked (begged!!! ) her.. to let me worship her feet!!!
She was at first super-puzzled.. she asked me "but.. why do you want to do this to my feet? they are ugly!!!". "NOOOO THEY ARE FANTASTIC, I LOVE THEM!!!", I shouted... she seemed very flattered (probably nobody had told her so in her entire life!!! ), reflected for some seconds, made a big smile, sat down, put them on the table and just said "well, as you like them.. here they are!!!".
My head started spinning, my heart pumped like a locomotive.. I don't remember much, just that I sticked to her sweaty, smelly and slightly dirty feet, doing everything which came to my mind (with her laughing madly!!! ) for what seemed an eternity.. until she grinned "hey, your mommy pays me to do the cleaning, not to have my feet cleaned by you!!!".
But my initiation to the exciting world of bare female feet was already history!!!
This remained my only worshipping session with her (sadly she moved to another village shortly afterwards).. but I'll be grateful to her for this for my entire life!!!

So.. LONG LIVE THE MERRY BAREFOOTED "MONDINE"!!!

There is another italian film set on rice field,less famous but in color :

- La Risaia (in english "Rice Girl"),other title : Das Reis-Mädchen,La fille de la rizière (reported by imdb)

The protagonist is a young Elsa Martinelli.

Also here the filming was done on real rice field farm (coincidentally 40 Km from where I live),
and most of the secondary actress were real rice cleaner ("mondine"),recruited from the local people.

I suggest to open a forum section dedicated to the film with allot of barefooting girls...

Dear Clipper, great to see that you are an enthusiast of vintage movies (just like me).. and especially of those featuring hot barefoot women (just like me!!! ).
Yes, we should definitely deal with this topic more often in this forum!!!

The wonderful ELSA MARTINELLI is among my favorite Italian actresses.
Elsa had a breakthrough role in the history of Italian glamour photography: she was actually the first Italian actress who dared to show her bare breasts (even if through a transparent, wet shirt) on the Italian magazine LE ORE, in a famous layout by the father of Italian glamour photography, the late FEDERICO PATELLANI.. those pictures made great scandal back in 1954!!!

ELSA MARTINELLI "see-through" topless shot ;-)

FULL-FIGURE shot of ELSA MARTINELLI from the same session.. yes.. BAREFOOTED!!! ;-)

Elsa loved to pose barefooted for glamour shots, and loved to walk barefooted outdoors very often also in real life, as many photos in the magazines of the 50s-60s prove!!!

However, sadly, "La Risaia" had way less barefooting action than "Riso Amaro"