Italy, Part 4: Solofra, and Radical Discoveries

After we left Naples, we traveled into the mountains to dig deeper into the family history.

Solofra

My grandfather Domenic Troisi was actually born in a small mountain town called Solofra, about half an hour east of the city of Salerno. His father, Beniamino Troisi, met his mother, Maria Michele Buongiorno, in Solofra when she was working for his brother, the local priest. Here's an excerpt from my grandfather's Memory Book for his 50th anniversary:

BENIAMINO TROISI FU BIAGIO met Maria Michele Buongiorno at the home of Father Carmine Troisi who was later elevated to the Canonico and Primicerio Curato to the Parochial and Collegiate Church St. Michele Arcangelo of Solofra Province of Avellino, Italy, December 21, 1941. Miss Buongiorno at the time she met Beniamino, brother of the priest, was keeping house for Father Troisi. Both the Troisis and the Buongiornos were respected families of Solofra.

Entrance to Terranova Agriturismo

So our little group of family seekers – which consisted of my cousins Janice and Loraine Carapellucci, Loraine’s husband Dave Handley, sister Julie Holm, daughter Lexie and me – converged on Solofra on Oct. 31, settling into a charming farm BnB, Terranova Agriturismo, just outside of the village. Our plan was to experience Domenic’s Solofra by attending Mass at St. Michael the Archangel’s on All Saint’s Day.

Discovering family

But as we were eating an Italian breakfast of bread, pastry, cheese and cappuccino that morning, who should arrive in the BnB’s dining room but a man I’d never seen before who looked slightly familiar, named Alfonso Buongiorno. It turned out that Janice had made contact with Alfonso through a friend back in New York, and he was our third cousin! His great grandfather had been Maria Michele’s brother, so we shared great-great-grandparents.

Alfonso shared my cousin Janice’s passion for genealogy, and a generous Italian sense of hospitality. Over breakfast, he shared many things he had learned about our family over a decade of digging, while I took notes like crazy. 

Here are the highlights:

Revelations

Buongiornos from both sides of the ocean

The first revelation was that the Buongiornos actually lived in Tuscany before coming to Solofra. But before that, they came from the Netherlands and Spain. In Spain, they were likely Sephardic Jews who had been forced to convert to Catholicism. Many families who did this changed their surnames to names like Buongiorno (which means Good Day) or Bonanno (which means good year) so that they could continue practicing Judaism undercover yet still be able to recognize each other.

Alfonso had done a little research on Troisis as well, and said the name was Norman in origin – which Janice, who had also learned this, had taken to mean Normandy, France. No, Alfonso said, it’s actually Norman as in Vikings, most likely from Norway and Sweden! He said many Troisis were blond and blue-eyed because of this heritage.

So we came to Italy to learn we were actually Spanish Jews, Dutch, and Vikings! This helped explain some of the oddities of the DNA test I took last year.

Leather and gold

For the last 500 years, Buongiornos have been tanners, producing fine-quality leather for overseas clients. A member of the family would live in Naples and act as a liaison to sell the product.  They also used to be in the gold business until a king stopped buying their product. Today many of their leather clients are being lost to Chinese mass production and cost undercutting, so the family business is grappling with how to respond to a bit of a crisis. But the family also owns rental properties in Calabria, the southern coast of Italy across from Sicily.

Meeting family

The best part of Solofra was discovering family there! We were invited to Alfonso’s home and met his wife Maria and children Raffaela, 18, and Francisco, 15. We talked genealogy and he showed us a framed family tree he had commissioned. He presented Janice with a binder containing scanned copies of paperwork he had acquired through his own genealogy research, which almost made her drool with anticipation.

The church

The church has a plaque on the outside dedicated to Monsignor Carmine Buongiorno, also called Il Canonico, my great great uncle. Inside there is a chapel set up by the family through an endowment. His gravestone is in the floor of a back room, behind the  sacristy.

All Saints Day

We joined the All Saints Day procession of Solofra residents walking in the rain under dark umbrellas down to the town cemetery, preceded by the town band playing mournful tunes. Once there, where you could buy colorful flowers from a roadside peddler, we entered the heavy gates and split up, looking for old Troisi and Buongiorno graves. As we wandered among the raised monuments, we watched people clean their family members’ graves and decorate them with flowers and pictures. A memorial mass was held in the chapel in the middle, and the choir voices drifted through the alleys between the small houses that held multiple family members’ graves. It was fascinating.

Here is Alfonso's family tree:

Next up -- Italy, Part 5: Lexie learns about her heritage

Greece, Part 2: The Islands, and Observations

On the third day in Greece, we marked the last day of our vacation by giving Lexie a day off to sleep late and do her own thing, while Bob and I embarked on a 12-hour cruise to visit three islands: Hydra, Poros and Aegina. It was a romantic and magical way to close the circle on our five weeks exploring Europe.

The cruise ship headed south through the Aegean Sea for three hours to the farthest island in the morning, and the views were spectacular. We sat on the deck drinking coffee and taking hundreds of pictures, each more beautiful than the next. The cruise ship also featured live Greek music and folkloric dancing, which was surprisingly good.

Hydra 

Hydra was a picturesque walking island (they had donkeys you can rent to get around), and we just bopped around the alleys and up the hillside, where we found trails down to the sea for swimming and a cluster of old cannons. We loved it!

Poros 

We were at Poros for such a short time we barely got a taste; we need to go back. We had time for a glass of ouzo, which made Bob a little woozy, in one of countless sidewalk cafes facing the sea. Then, still ravenous, we split a delicious waffle sundae with Nutella.

Aegina

Aegina, which has a surprisingly large port, is the Pistachio Island, so we bought pistachio liqueur and pistachio-chocolate bark, explored the shops (unfortunately closed because of the late hour), sat on a couch in a tavern facing the sea while we enjoyed some ouzo, and spent sunset on a pier watching the scarlet sun sink behind the distant mountains through the bobbing masts of wooden sailboats.

Our Cruise Ship

Couldn't finish without some images of our cruise ship and the entertainment and food on board!

Greece, Part 1: Athens and Antiquity

We added Greece to our itinerary at the last minute. Bob said, “Hey, since we’ll be in Italy anyway and Greece is so close, how about we finish the vacation on a Greek Island?” He had been to Greece about 30 years ago and remembered it fondly.

I couldn’t think of a reason to say no, especially after we found incredibly cheap 4- and 5-star hotels and apartments available during the time we would be there – as low as $26 a night for a really nice two-bedroom apartment in a resort near the sea. The catch? November officially launches the winter season in Greece. So while we could find affordable, beautiful lodging, it would be too cold to go to the beach and no restaurants would be open.

So the islands were out

But then Lexie chimed in that she was really interested in mythology from her World Civilization class and books she had read, and she would LOVE to visit Athens and see the ruins and the seat of western civilization.

So Athens was in

So we added three days in Athens to the journey. I found a boutique hotel in a location that Booking.com gave a grade of 10. Bob did some research into what to do while there, finding guides to what to do in one day in Athens, or two days in Athens. He worried that we had booked too much time there and would be bored.

He was wrong.

Temple of Zeus, sunset

From the second we stepped off the plane, we were in love. The airport was new and modern and welcoming to tourists. The weather in early November was sunny and in the low 70s. (This is considered winter?) The cab driver was friendly, and his cab was large and state-of-the-art, with leather seats and the most advanced GPS we ever saw. A self-driving car (Lexie had a moment of panic about him not watching the road until he shared this piece of information), the Mercedes made its way to our hotel while he chatted away about sights we should see and places we should visit and pointed them out on his 3D, shape-shifting GPS screen.

The Arethusa Hotel, as it turned out, was just a short block to one of the main squares in Athens, Syntagma Square. When we arrived, a bellman promptly grabbed our luggage and delivered it to our room for us – a nice change from the hoofing around we had done in Naples, and a good idea since the elevators were tiny. From the wall to wall windows, the city view was delightful, the towels thick and fluffy, the beds soft and comfy. We looked at each other with delight and said, “We deserve this!”

The National Garden

National Garden selfie

Emporr busts in the National Garden

The next morning, getting up early to run, Bob and I discovered that the National Garden, with miles upon miles of running trails and views of the Temple of Zeus, was only two blocks away.  We saw scores of fit runners covering the trails in small groups. Then we went to the breakfast room. Mama mia!  Hotel Arethusa offered a delicious, abundant Greek/American buffet breakfast that included Greek yogurt, granola; spinach, meat and cheese pies; eggs, toast, fruit, cold cuts and cheese, Nutella and jams, eight kinds of coffee, juices, hot chocolate, and more. All this for just 80 euros a night ($90)!

Changing of the Guard

We started, at our cab driver’s recommendation, at the Parliament at 11 AM on Sunday morning to watch the Changing of the Guard. This happens quietly every hour round the clock, but the Sunday morning show is 30 minutes long and a spectacle designed to entertain a crowd. And in fact, hundreds of people turned out to watch, jostling with each other to get the best pictures and video. It was wonderful! Soldiers somehow managed to look manly high-kicking in perfect synchronization while wearing traditional country guard uniforms, which consisted of white tutus, matching white tights, red berets with long black feathers down one side, and black clogs with large tassels on top. Their serious faces and the long red and black rifles they carried certainly helped.

Hop On Hop Off Bus

Next we boarded the Hop On Hop Off bus to get a quick lay of the land. We took lots of great pictures from the top level of the double-decker, where every corner brought a new discovery. The tour was informative and comprehensive, and the headphones actually worked well. We used the bus as transit after the initial circle, and visited the original Olympic Stadium (including the underground tunnel, a museum that featured Olympic posters and torches, and of course the winners’ podium), the Temple of Zeus (our timing at sunset created amazing light for the pictures), Hadrian’s Arch, the Plaka (an atmospheric old city with wonderful shopping and dining options), the Acropolis and Parthenon (of course), the National Archeological Museum (where you can eat in a café surrounded by ancient sculptures), and even the Flea Market.

Views from the HoHo:

Acropolis

Fish market

Next … Greece, Part 2: The Islands, and Observations

Italy, Part 3: Rome

Rome was literally eye-popping. We stepped out of a subway for the first time and were immediately accosted by the enormous, imposing Coliseum. All three of us stopped and gasped simultaneously. The scale of it was, as Lexie put it, “incredible. I don’t even know how to describe it.”

That pretty much describes Rome: Larger than life.

The Colosseum

Since we only had a couple days in Italy's capital, we decided we had no time to waste waiting in line unnecessarily. So we took a skip-the-line tour of the Colosseum, the largest amphitheater ever built, circa AD 70. (We picked the first person who approached us, but you might want to do more research than that.) Though it was partially destroyed by a major earthquake, it is surprisingly intact, and truly spectacular. We were able to climb fairly high and peered down at the space where gladiators fight and public executions were the spectacle of the day.

The Colosseum

It is flanked by the Roman Forum, which for centuries was the center of day-to-day life in Rome, and Palatine Hill, one of the most ancient parts of the city.

The Forum and Palatine Hill

Our Morning Walking Tour

The second morning, Lexie slept late while Bob and I took the subway to the Trevi Fountain, the largest Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world  Again, we got so much more than we expected. It was huge, built into the side of a big stone building, and glorious. Description, legend. It turned out we were there at the least crowded time of the day, so we were able to each throw a coin in the fountain over our left shoulders. (According to legend, one coin means you will return to Rome, two means you will find new romance and three means you will get married. We already have two and three covered.) Suddenly the 1950s song Three Coins in the Fountain makes more sense.

Trevi Fountain

We then had an overpriced breakfast of croissants and cappuccinos across the way from the fountain, basking in the location and the glorious leisure It is in a charming old section of Rome with narrow streets and no cars. We walked along, taking pictures of a large diversity of creative, small shop windows, and came along a Pinocchio shop – ah, yes, that childhood tale about Gepetto, the lonely shoemaker and his wooden doll who turned into a real boy, is Italian in origin!

Gepetto's workshop

Our wanderings also took us through the Fifth Avenue of Rome – Gucci, Armani, Ermenegildo Zegna, etc. -- to the famous Spanish Steps, which we had never heard of, but they are glorious and worth a visit.  It's127 steps up, and nearby is the apartment where Keats died at the age  of 29 - just a little literary trivia.

Spanish Steps

We found the Pantheon, an ancient temple to the Roman gods converted to a Catholic Church that was simply amazing. It is circular, 142 feet wide and 142 feet tall, with a hole in the roof that lets light in as well as rain, and a drain in the floor. It is one of the best preserved of all Roman buildings because it has been in continuous use and is still used as a church and to host concerts today.  It was also not crowded, and had pews we could sit in to rest our tired feet.

Pantheon

The Vatican

We went back to our apartment (Homeaway did us right; our two-bedroom was gorgeous, comfortable and close to the subway, and since we booked an off-season rental only two weeks before, we were able to get the price lowered) to get Lexie, who had been sleeping late (she is 18, after all), and headed out for the obligatory tour of the Vatican. We chose a 3 PM tour to avoid the morning crowds, which Bob and I had witnessed firsthand the previous morning when we ran past the Vatican and had to dodge the lines. Again, we paid extra to skip the line, and were led through the Vatican Museums by a stylish Liberian woman whose English accent was too thick for Bob to decipher. (Thanks to time spent with a Liberian friend when I lived in New York, I understood her just fine.)

The Vatican Museum (actually, museums) is one of the largest museums in the world, featuring an immense collection amassed by popes throughout the centuries. The tour was a little too quick, but interesting nonetheless, especially the Map Room. I would like to go back in my own and take the time to linger. I also discovered the secret to seeing the Vatican without the crowds is to wait till the afternoon, a time when no Skip the Line premium would have been necessary. Here are some highlights:

The Sistine Chapel was a feast to behold, although Michelangelo's famous creation image was surprisingly small in the center of the ceiling, and the elbow-to-elbow crowd made it challenging to view. (Sorry, no photos are allowed in the Sistine Chapel.)

St. Peter's Square

St. Peter’s Basilica was glorious, but I was disappointed to be denied seeing the Pieta sculpture, which was behind a curtain and required a premium to view. I made sure to buy a couple of packable souvenirs and posted postcards to my brother John, who is a Catholic priest, and my stepmother, Katy. Because it was a Saturday evening, I could have gotten a free ticket to see the Pope say Mass the next morning from the nuns in the gift shop. Unfortunately, we planned to travel at the same time, so I didn’t. If you ever travel to Rome, you should know admission is free on the last Sunday of every month, so plan accordingly!

St. Peter's Basilica

Cats of Rome

Bob stayed an extra day and visited Torre Argentina, the spot where Julius Caesar was killed, a ruin that is now a Cat Sanctuary.

Thoughts on Rome

A few thoughts on Rome:

• It is OLD.
• It is Catholic! I realized this, but still, it's a surprise to see so many nuns and priests and monks in the streets of a city.
• There are no footpaths or grassy places to run, though there is a path along the Tiber River, which was just a bit too far from our apartment.
• Because of the density of the center or the city, public transit is limited to the edges and you have to walk a lot, on cobblestones. We skipped the Hop On Hop Off Bus because the reviews made clear the buses couldn’t actually get near the most popular sites, and stops were few and far between.
• The menu is extremely limited: pizza and pasta. And more pizza. And more pasta. And gelato, gelato, gelato. It’s wonderful! But after a while, no matter how good it is, you get tired of the same menu.
• There are a lot of beggars, who seemed like a throwback to another time. We saw women in scarves lying on the sidewalk with heads bowed in prayer and cup extended, and young men with gnarled legs and feet propelling themselves on skateboards, distorted hands inside of heavy boots and cups extended.
• It is larger than life. From the Vatican to the Coliseum to the Fountain of Trevi, everything is so big, it takes your breath away.

Two and a half days was not enough time. We will be back!

Next up -- Italy, Part 4: Solofra, and Radical Discoveries

Italy, Part 2: Why Italy

Why Italy?

Italy was actually the impetus for this whole European adventure. 

My cousin Janice Carapellucci has been passionately pursuing our family roots on the Troisi side for a decade, especially the artist Donato Buongiorno, who was my Italian grandfather Domenic Troisi’s uncle and his family’s sponsor when they came to the United States from Naples in 1907. (She collects his work, as he was a fairly prominent artist at the turn of the last century, and hopes to stage a show of his work in New York City in spring 2019. Her website is donatusbuongiorno.com.)

In addition, my sister Julie Holm and her husband Mark visited Italy about a decade ago and found the hometown where my grandfather was born, Solofra, a picturesque village of goldsmiths and leather tanners located in lush mountains about a half hour east of Salerno.

Janice has been planning a family expedition to Naples and Solofra for years. When my daughter Lexie decided to take a gap year before starting college, I decided the timing of the trip this fall provided a wonderful opportunity for her to learn about her Italian family history.

Then it turned into our travel version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie: If we were going to be in Italy for the family reunion, we may as well go to Rome for a couple days first. And since Spain is close by, we might as well visit our exchange student, Laia, and her family, in Barcelona. And while we were in Europe, we should visit our oldest, Aryk, at Keele University in England. And if we were going to be in England, we need to spend time in London and get tickets to Hamilton in the West End.  And if we were going to be so close to Germany, we needed to visit my brother Pat and his family outside Hamburg. And since Icelandair, with the cheapest flight to Hamburg, offered a free stop-off in Reykjavik, we had to spend a few days in Iceland. And because Italy is so close to Greece, we added Athens.

So the Italy portion of our trip can be divided into two distinct sections: sightseeing in Rome and ancestry-seeking in Naples and Solofra. You've already seen a report from Naples. I realize we are going out of order, but that's the nature of travel. These blogs need to be posted when they're written. Thanks for being flexible!

Next … Italy, Part 3: Rome