Went for a quick run this morning.. CHecked out two shrines just a 100 or so meters up from the house. This one says If you stand in the right place you’ll see the apparition of the Virgin Mary. Ilalians really love Mary. 

 

Heres a view from here of a nearby town… 

 

And here’s a protrait of an even more nearby chicken.. our neighbor

 

Luigi  picked us up at 9.. but couldn’t leave  just yet because the wash machine was still working. We got on the road  to Pizzo about 10.. and as always in cars.. I fell fast asleep .instantly . 
I woke near pizzo and looked around.. same wonderful scenery of hill villages

 

Our first stop was the  Chiesseta di Piedgrotta that we found in several places. The fact that it was in Atlas Obscura is always a good sign for us. 

The Chiesetta (little  church) was carved out of a limestone cliff rThe story it was based on an old story of 17th century sailors who prayed to mary during a storm and promised to build a church their if their lives were spared.. There’s no record  of the real wreck.. but the story inspired a  ia  local sculpture beginning to begin carving out a cave church there beginning in the 1880’s.. When he died in 1919, his son took over and kept expanding the church and its sculptures for about 40 years. After that the place became abandoned. The sign said that during this time a bot or boys broke in and broke many of the statues.(. not sure why they assumed it was boys !.. not girls)   . In the 1990’s (I think) an Italian sculptor  living in Canada came hoe for a visit.. fell in love with the story and moved here and began renevating the place.

It was really cool and wierd.. the statues are carved out of the same rock that the cave is made out of.. You have to appreciate the deotion all these folks had to making this place possioble

 

FRom there we drove up into the city center. First order of busienss was food !. Luigi helped us find this really great place ‘La Lampara’   

The cook was Paulo and he used to live in LA. He took really good care of us .. He modified the dishes to our preferences and explained how he adjusted the cooking times to make the pasta perfect (it was !) every time .  I had ravioli  with fish , great salad and veggies. Linda had wonderful pasta  with local tomaties and david had seafood pasta.. really wonderful food. 

 

Then we took around the very cute (and touristy) seaside town of Pizzo

 

 

THere qwas a very famos family named ‘Murat’ here.. so I took a bunmch of pics for my very good freind Murat in Wien . 

 

Then we stopped for the towns famous gelato.. there are more than 20 gelato places around the town square. Their specialty is a kind of gelato truffle. 

 

By then it was time to go find luigi and head home. We enjoyed walkign down the narrow streets

 

we kept seeign this figure of a kings head (>) wiht his toungue out.. not sure what it meant.. but there must have been 4-5 of them

 

We found Luigi.. and headed back to Maino Marchesata with a stop in a huge grocery store. It was so fun tring to make ourselves understood.. The staff at the store were so fun and helpful even though we didnt share a common language. We were looking for soemthing weird to drink.. and I came across this bottle of Fernet-Branci (or “frikky Bernachi” as Gabe and I call it.. brings back memories of our accidental trip to paraquay  several years ago where we baught a bottle of this stuff.. YUCK !)

 

We also bought a great cheese, Tellegio,  that. brought back great memories of  good friends and  good travel in e when I was an exchange student in Europe in 1979-80.

We got home and were still too full to consider dinner. We made a nice salad and sat outside and watched night fall wiht the neighbors many (many, many) cats. 

We tool a late evening walk back up to see the church.. it’s a nice place to alk around..

 

we went by the Mary shrine again

 

Later that night I decided I wanted to go for a swim. It turns out the owners want you to where bathing caps.. whcih is funny.. for two reasons.. 1). my head is where I have the least hair on my body.. and 2).. they didn’t say you needed to where anything else :

Well.. at least my head had something on 🙂 

Nite all, nite sam

-me

Todays the day we shift from Abruzzo in Eastern central itly to Calabria in the south. Hiring Luigi  turns out to have been a very good decision for all kinds of reasons.  .. but this cross  country trek was one of the main deciding factors we had in deciding to hire a driver. The alternatives were 10 hours of either bus rides or train rides with  multiple changes.. or expensive flights from Pescara to Rome to Lamazia.. 

I have to admit, it was hard to say goodbye to the wonderful Villa Panarama. Vitorio and Samone have been great hosts and the place is simply amazing. I took a few more pics to remember the place includign this view from our bed. 

 

here are a few more pics of the place.. we cant recommend it enough !

 

One of the great features is an outdoor shower.. here’s the view from there

 

Inside there’s a cool little ‘hut’ where they’ve built a full bath.. on top is this chhicken who’s now sitting on a samstone 🙂

A few more shots from the balcony then time to go !

 

We walked the road to the main street to meet Luigi at 9AM for the long drive south

 

the drive down was fun but uneventful.. about 7 hours i think. some  good sleep, fun conversations and  some  great truck stops

 

We got to our destinationa round 5.. We’re staying in Marano Marchesato (note.. almost dianes last name Mariano – minus the ‘i’)

We’re staying here because Lindas family is from Cosenza (which is nearby) and Tiriolo which is about an hour away. We could tel when driving through Cosenza that it wasn’t[t going to be that fun to visit . It was big and noisy and city-ish

 

No worries.. there are many things to do down here

The place we rented is a converted farmhouse…. its attached to an older farmhouse where an older couple lives with their dogs, cats, goats and chickens.. They are super nice .. and it makes for lively and colorful stay. The place is quite simple and nice.. .. not the luxury of abruzo.. but it has. great views, a pool, and a small soccer field (wow ) The folks we’re renting  from : Juri and his dad are super friendly and helpful.  The town is quaint, rural,  and has a mix of really old  and new construction . Its not as clean and polished as Abruzzo.. but it’s very warm and welcoming. 

Looks like I havent taken any pictures of the place yet.. but I will later.. THere’s a great littl place to sit and take in the view out front

We took a quick explore of the town.. There’s a very cool old church under repair just up the road

 

Here’s the view from the house.. nice !

 

We didn’t stop at a store.. so our hoist Jurij  Helped find a pizza place that delivered on late sunday night. The Puzza guy Simon was super great.. as was the pizza !. Check out   Ristorante Macrito  If you find yourself hungry in Marano Marchesata Calabria 🙂 

OK.. tomorrow we head to the beach at Pizzo. about an hour down the  Tyrrhenian (check out that spelling !) coast 

More from then !

Nite all, nite sam

-me

We decided that we wanted to visit a vu=ineyard or olive oil place today ut hadnt had much luck in finding a place. Magical Luigi managed to track down the owner of the Olive Oil museum in Bucchianico to ask her.., That place has such fantastic reviews (see here ) . as fate had it.. she was off today (Saturday).. but she kindly invited us out to her house/ air b&b / organic vineyard  in Navelli about an hour away. 

We pile in the Luigi-mobile for the trip.. We arrived and were welcomed by this guy

Our host today was Francesca.. She was a delightful ball of energy.. with two great kids and a great husband. They bought this place in Navelli and have made it it in to a wonderful B&B called Cantin Arte as well as a n organic wine producer. We *definitely* recommend you find a way to visit whether for a stay or a tour like we did. 

Francesca introduced their operation then took us down to their eco viinyard for a few hours of grape harvesting. There were three other americans with us.. nice talkign to them as well. 

 

We also learned a little about saffron harvesting whihc was pretty cool.. Francesca has even Zsold bulbs to someone in Burlington VT. We learned it takes about 200,000 ‘threads’ to make a kilogram of saffron !

The vineyard was beautiful.. and the grapes were deliviosu despite it being a hard year here due to weather. We each collected about a crate of grapes.. which was about 30-40 pounds I think. 

 

It was fun work.. the sun was hot so we were happy when it was tiem to go up for a light lunch

Francesca put Luigi to work helping to cut tomatoes.. they  were an old heritage type.. a little funky looking.. but soooo delicious !

 

 

Francesca served us cut tomaties with olive oil on fresh made bread and soem of their whomeade organic wine. all delicious !

 

From there wqe went and took a look at the wine proudction process. THey we’rent expressing juice until later in the afternoon, but we got a good idea of the process. all the equipment was brand new.. 

but the building had been an old winemaking place complete with a pressing floor  for barefoot squishing ala Lucy ! THe squished grape joice flowwed through a small hole in the floor into a big cistern

There was som other very old winne making stuff around like this vat

 

Diego showed us the yeast culture that they make from the natureal yeast on the grapes. How cool is that ?!?!

 

Then it was time to go.. it was truly hard to leave.. Francesca and Diego were so nice.. and their place was so beautiful !  But we had to head back !

 

We drove a few towns over to Bominaco for a (second) lunch.. We split a plate of saffron ravioli… so good !

 

We took a walk from the resturant up the hill.. because we saw some folks all dressed up walkign that way. It turned out to be a wedding at a a church from the 12th century (I think) 

 

The wedding guests were starting to show up .. so we had to scoot out of there

 

From there it was time to head home.. On the way we got a shot of this set of road signs with many  the towns of diane’s family history in one place !

 

Home again, home again

 

Just in time.. rain clouds coming in over the valley behind the house. We got a quick run in before the rain

 

Our goal was to check out soem abandoned buildings on the trail behind the house

 

Clouds Getting pretty dark.. time to run for home !

 

Another Really Nice day !!!

 

Hope you all are having a great and thoughtful New Year

!לשנה טובה תכתב ותחתם

Nite all, nite sam

-me

Today was a little quieter.. still packed with good stuff.  Started with a quick run at the house. Marveling at the stuff in this well decorated house.

 

Luigi picked us up at 8:45 for our 9 AM meeting with Franco at the Guardiagrele town offices. Franco is the guy that Luigi met by accident the other day at Fara Fallorum Petri just because he had the right soccor jersey on. Franco works in the town records office and was just the guy to help us find out a few more secretes of dianes past. Guardiagrele is a nice place to walk around

 

We found the town offices without too much trouble.. THere was a plaque remembering the Jews deported from here multiple times. Hard to see….

. 

 

With Luigi’s help in translation, we went right to work with Franco. Diane was trying to find the history of two of her grandfathers relatives.. his sister who moved ot the us then back to ityal, then an adopted sister. We didnt find direct info on either, biut found lots of info on dianes granfather. Most of it was already in Steves books.. but it was very cool to find it directly. The main thing we found about the adopted daughter was that COnstantinos mother probably took in the adopted sister.. probably a foundling.. left at a local church ..  when her own infant baby was still born. It’s hard  reading  about all this birth death marriage , loves, loss, loves without feeling for every one of the peopl ewho are a box on one of these charts or a page in ann ancient records ledger. 

 

Info on dianes grandfother constantino mariano (here writtien as “mariani” !) and his parents was easy to find..  We found his birthrecords with a street address, but no street number

 

Franco pointed out some of the othe t towns.. Chieti, Villamagna, Farra Falorum Petri and Buchiannico..  all of which we have or will visit.

 

 

We found records of the ship passages that Constantine had taken which was also in Steve’s books.. We were  amazed at all of the info that Steve could find from his living room in Kansas. and even more amazed at the research quality and organization he did.. ! We could tell that Franco was impressed too !

Here’s where we were trying to figure out the adoption of Constantinos sister. Franco found records showing the stillbirth  of Anna Dominco’s baby..and a few unamed baby girl that were close enough in age to be the foundling sister (never used the word “foundling” before) 

 

We got a little overwhelmed and will need Steves help figuring all this out I  We said goodbye and thanks to Franco and headed out to the streets of Guardigrele. 

 

We stopped into a store which sold cool cooking gadgets including coockers for ‘arosocini” (aka “speedies” famous in Endicott) 

From there we headed to Chieti.. Diane grandmother Piereinna worked there as a young woman.. Chieti was the biggest town in the region.. and a whole lot less charming. Still it was fun walking where Pierrene lived and worked . 

Our main stop there was the Archiological museum.. Super interesting !

This guy is famous ! It  very old and very complete

 

This bronze was one of the most famous for its age,  detail and condition

 

We headed out into the student section of town.. 

 

We met Luigi and headed to the adriatic coast at Francovilla al Mar. Luigi helped us find a beautiful restaurant on the beach.. the restaurant… and the beach were deserted.. just past season

Evidently swimming is almost forbidden.. but ‘heliotherapy’ is A-OK !

This sign writes its own caption: ” I predict you will later think this was a bad idea !”

 

Took this for our friend Gizzo

 

We then drove about 20 miles down the coast past Ortona to grab a bike and hiking path. There was a motorcycle race? festival ?  something.. going on down there which was fun.. we took a walk down the beach path through some really cool tunnels.. This must have been a rail line at some point. It was great to be by the sea

THen a final stop for gelato.. They had a flavor called (i)NVIDIA.. how weird was that ? 

 

And that was our day… very satisfying !

Tonight is Erev Rosh Hashanah ,. The Jewish New Year begins at sunset,. People typically celibrate by eating apples and honey to bring on a sweet new year.. we toasted the new year with  delicious local  fuirt.

לשנה טובה תכתב ותחתם   Ya’ll !

 

nite all, nite sam

-me