We were all exhausted at this point and decided to have a leisurely morning before the ride up to Vienna.  We decided at the last minute to stop there (rather than going straight through to CZ), and better yet - to spend two nights in one place, which we hadn't done yet.

On the way, we met up with my friends Robert and Eva from Czech Republic.  They were visiting Italy on vacation and we were able to meet up on the way out of Slovenia in Palmanova, Italy.  It almost didn't happen because it was relatively late by the time we actually got in touch.  We did finally manage it, though, and after some goodbyes with the lovely Pia and Tine, we headed to Palmanova, Italy.

The city of Palmanova was pretty interesting.  It was dead quiet (weird), but it was shaped like a star.  The old fortification walls were still intact, and at each side there was a road leading into the center of town.  Each road leading to the center was marked with colord flags indicating the cardinal direction.  Pretty cool!

Image from www.mtvfriulivg.it/

We planned to meet in front of the church with the tallest steeple in the main square and actually managed to find each other.  It was the first time I was able to meet Robert and Eva's kids... I hadn't been to CZ for four years, Eva was pregnant with their son the last time I was there.  For lunch I ordered shrimp... which was an experience.  You may or may not know that I am vegetarian, and seafood is an occasional cheat for me while at restaurants.  I wasn't too strict on this trip because sometimes it's just super-hard to do while travelling, especially while travelling with other people.  So anyway, I ordered shrimp for lunch.  These shrimpies came with heads on and were not de-veined, so I literaly had to perform surgery on them... oy.  That was a thing.  My brother (who is an omnivore, btw) was totally grossed out.  Fortunately, there were only six, and one of them was not even cooked through all the way, so there were really only five for me to... work on.  To top it off, they were more than a euro a piece.  Fantastic.  

Anyway, we had lunch, spent some time chatting and getting to know the kids, and then set off for Vienna.  I am really, really glad that we decided to meet up.  Robert was one of my closest friends when I was living in Plzen.  We spent a lot of time together partying in pubs and travelling... camping and hiking in Corsica, in the Italian Alps, and all over Czech Republic.  We have big plans to make a trip with another friend, Vasa, to the French Pyranees for some backpacking one day.  Robert and Eva have always been open, welcoming, and willing to help with anything.  So lucky to have such good friends <3

After parting ways, we hit the road for Vienna.  It was a really pretty drive.  There were a lot of tunnels as we passed through the Alps.  It was so gorgeous... every bend leading to a more beautiful view than the last.  It was just impossible to capture with a camera (plus I think I was driving at that point) so I don't really have any photos of it.  You'll just have to trust me!  

We did stop at some crazy Austrian rest stop... it was so weird.  It was called Old-Timey or something, I don't even know.  I can't even describe it, so I'll just let the pictures do the talking here :)

We did finally make it into Vienna and spent a long time driving around and getting lost as we searched for our hostel.  It was late, we were tired.  I was driving, so whenever Mike and Sam went to ask for directions, I stuck my camera out the window and played with the low light of the dark city.  We did eventually find our hostel.  For you photo nerds... I was flipping out when I saw the Impossible sign. :)

More Europe? Visit Vienna or see some of the perfect fariytale land that is Slovenia.

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Day three.  This was the day we visited our great-grandfather's village.  Again, we wound our way through many switchbacks up to the top of an old mountain.  It was surprising to me how dry the landscape was in this part of the country.  In other areas, I was seeing the same type of vegetation that we have in Florida, including oleander, confederate jasmine, mimosa trees, and lantana.

As with our great-grandmother, we only knew his name and the name of one of his brothers - we didn't know their parents' names.  We did not get as much help from the locals in this village, but there was defiitely some.  The first encounter we made was with a woman named Maria Amoruso, which is kind of amazing because we have had several Marie Amorusos in our family. :)  Apparently Ripabottoni was chock full o'Amorusos that may or may not be related.  Maria Amoruso worked in the municipal office and was able to show us the birth record of our great-grandfather and also gave us some information about the town.  Someone did get in touch with a woman who spoke English and who was going to set up a meeting for us with another Amoruso, but we had to leave before they arrived.  To top it off, it was right when the town was shutting down for the afternoon so we couldn't even tell the people that we were working with previously that we needed to get going.  I felt really bad about that. :-/

This was our last full day with AMUC.  We headed back to Rome and stayed there for the night.

More Europe? Visit Roccasicura, Italy where my great grandmother is from or follow the road from Italy to Slovenia and get some gelato (finally!).

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We found it!  After many, many switchbacks and a few wrong turns, we finally made it to Roccasicura.  This is the town that my maternal great grandmother was from.  We only had her name and the name of her sister, we didn't know their parents' names or their exact birth dates, so we weren't sure what we would find - if anything. AMUC had t-shirts made that said 'We are looking for the Ciarlone family' on one side and 'We are looking for the Amoruso family' on the other.  They wore their shirts on this day, and I have to confess that I was kind of shocked that they worked!  

Consider yourself warned: this is a really long post :)

Once we found the town, we stopped on the outskirts to take a few pictures and just take in the view.  It was unlike anything I'd seen before: the village was built on an outcropping of rock, and the clock tower was constructed around the outcropping, so it was a mix of natural rock and cut stone.  The population was about 700.

We then made our way a little deeper into town and happened to hang a left.  We walked down a narrow road that opened up into a small square.  In this square, we were greeted by a dog, Chico, and his elderly owner.  The man read our shirts and indicated that Ciarlones did live in the town.  Fortunately, we also ran into an American (Stuart) who was staying in town with his wife (Anna).  Anna's family was from the town and still had a house there, right on this square.  The two of them were able to help us track down people who knew the history of families in the town.  One of them was an older man named Antonio who couldn't help us without the names of our great grandmother's parents.  We then decided to try the records in the municipal office at the top of the square.  By the time we made this decision, we had a small group of folks gathering around to see what was going on.

In the municipal office, we met Antonia who extremely helpful.  It turns out that she was born in Sommerville, Mass., which is where my grandparents met and got married, and also where I lived when I lived in Boston in 2001.  She was actually probably a distant relative because she was also related to the Ciarlones. :)  She was amazingly thorough in her research and we were able to find my great-grandmother's original hand-written birth record, her sister's birth record, and the birth record for another sister who died shortly after she was born.  We found their parents' name and the street that they lived on, which was right around the corner.  The house numbers had changed, but we took a walk on the street anyway.

After our little walk, we went into the church that was right next to the municipal building.  After a few minutes of taking photos and exploring the church, one of the elderly ladies we had met earlier came in (Eva) and started explaining all of the stained glass windows to me - in Italian.  They were pretty disappointed that we didn't speak Italian, and clearly my Czech was no help at all.  For some reason every time I tried to say something like 'Yes, I understand', I would say it in Czech... and of course yes in Czech is 'no' or 'ano', which is obviously no in Italian.  So then I'd try to stop myself from saying 'no' and then I'd say 'jo' instead, which is like saying yeah in Czech, then I'd try 'rozumim', which is also not Italian, and then eventually I'd get around to saying 'si', long after Eva had moved onto the next thing she wanted to say. :) Somehow, though, I managed to catch most of what she was saying.  

The windows in the church were donated by the emigrants from this village, probably to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the wave of emigration that happened in the early 1900s.  The first three windows depicted the emigrants leaving the village from this main square, their entrance into the US at Ellis Island, and the villagers that were left behind.  The other windows were related to the church: evening prayers, the patron saints of the church (Leonardo and Giorgio), a depiction of the Madonna found nearby, the Madonna as a protector of the world, and a festival celebrating the Madonna with the a promenade of the depiction found nearby.

After our tour of the church, we grabbed a bite to eat and were invited in to Stuart and Anna's house for some espresso, biscuits, and a nice chat.  They were so incredibly friendly and helpful, it was wonderful.  We learned the story of their house in Roccasicura and their life back in the states.

Refreshed and incredibly happy with our findings, we did a little bit more wandering (I could have stayed here for days just to walk around, meet people, and take photos) and then headed to Campobasso, a nearby city to find a place to stay for the night.  The place we found was reasonably priced and fairly kitschy.  We had a tasty dinner there and a good night's sleep.  In Campobasso, we encountered the second ATM that wouldn't work for Sam, and shortly afterward the first ATM that ate her card.  She did manage to get it back, though!

More Europe? Visit my great grandfather's village in Ripabottoni, Italy or go back to where Europalooza 2012 all began, Villeta Barrea, Italy on day one.

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Europalooza 2012.  That was an amazing two weeks.  It felt like I was gone for three months, not just two weeks.  It was so refreshing to be away from technology and non-stop work and to just be out in the world.  I really needed it and loved every moment of it!

This trip was a family reunion of sorts.  My brother (Mike) and his girlfriend (Sam) and I met up with my Aunt Marie and Uncle Chuck (AMUC) who were traveling in Europe for the first time in celebration of her completing her doctorate degree.  We had decided to get together and visit the villages that the Italian side of our family is from, so this would be my maternal great grandparents.  After visiting these villages in Italy, AMUC returned to the states and Mike, Sam and I rented a tiny Fiat Panda and made our way through Slovenia, Vienna, and Czech Republic.  In CZ, we met up with our brother-in-law who was there on business and a few of my very close friends who I had not seen in four years.  It was definitely a type of homecoming for me.  More details on that to follow later. :)

So AMUC, Mike, Sam, and I all met in the Rome airport on June 27th.  Interestingly, it was here that my brother realized that he'd left his debit card at home and Sam encountered a broken ATM (the first of many for her).  We all piled into a vehicle that UC had arranged and set off on our journey.  The hotel that we had made a reservation at turned out to be closed upon our arrival at 6pm, so we ended up staying at a different place just up the road, which was pretty fantastic.  It was Albergo del Lago in Villetta Barrea - a tiny mountain village near a lake.  We had a lovely dinner complete with fresh olives and wine (I had pasta with fresh local mushrooms - yum!), slept well, and packed up the next morning to begin tracing our roots.

More Europe? Check out day two and our visit to my great grandmother's village!

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