We spent days 82-85 in a variety of places. First we took Chris' parents to see Orvieto. Since we had such a nice time at La Rocca the week before they arrived, we decided to go back for their last two days in Italy. This time we stayed in a two bedroom apartment in Villa dell'Olio. Once again we had a great time relaxing by the pool, grilling dinner and wandering the streets of Orvieto. 

Orvieto Cathedral
This time we entered the beautiful cathedral in Orvieto.  While the facade of this cathedral is its most impressive feature, the inside of the cathedral is also stunning. Inside the cathedral there are two chapels covered in frescos. My favorite part was the Chapel of the Madonna San Brizio which is adorned with gold-toned frescoes by Luca Signorelli. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the cathedral but I did capture this shot of the facade in the late afternoon sun:

Butcher? Buuutcher? Bu-CHER? 
One night we decided to grill at the apartment but we were missing a key ingredient - meat! Therefore we were on the hunt for a butcher during our visit to Orvieto. Before we left, we looked up the Italian word for butcher which is macellaio.  In and effort to remember the word, we walked down the street repeating macellaio - but all of us pronounced it in a different way. We kept saying it over and over for what felt like 10 minutes and then realized that all the Italian people around us probably thought we were crazy. Imagine if you were in the US and a group of 4 adults kept saying butcher in various accents over and over and over again. We eventually found the macellaio so while we may have sounded crazy, our efforts paid off!  

Ciao Ciao! 
After 2 days in Orvieto we drove back to Rome where we dropped Mom & Dad Barbier off at the airport.  While we were sad to say goodbye, we were so happy and thankful they made the trip out to Italy to see us! 

Verona & Lake Garda
From the Rome airport, we immediately drove up to Lake Garda in northern Italy, where we would spend the night before heading up to Munich. On the way we stopped in the fair city of Verona.  We all know Verona as the setting for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. There is even a tourist spot where you can pay to take pictures on Juliet's (supposed) balcony. We briefly stopped by the balcony but it was mobbed with tourists. Chris quickly wrote our names on the Wall of Love, as is custom, and we skedaddled out of there. We enjoyed walking through the colorful streets of Verona and decided it would be a very romantic vacation destination if we were ever to come back to Italy. 

We arrived in Lake Garda that afternoon and stayed at the Arciduca Charming House in the little town of Arco. It was a bit rainy in the evening so we took a quick stroll around Arco and then spent most of the evening at a cute little cafe in the park.  The next day we visited the giant blue lake surrounded by grey and green mountains.  The towns are not as picturesque as those on Lake Como, but I think it's a better place for people who enjoy swimming & sailing. There seemed to be more families on the beach enjoying the water. In fact, the water seemed a lot cleaner than Lake Como's.  There were also lots of older people sitting along the lake which makes me suspect that this is a popular retirement destination. 

Neuschwanstein Castle
On our way to Munich, we took a small detour to see Neuschwanstein Castle.  This is the castle after which Disney modeled Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disney World.  However, do not refer to it as The Disney Castle if you are speaking with a German. I did this, simply because I didn't know how to pronounce Neuschwanstein and was immediately informed that this castle predates Mr. Walt Disney and the Magic Kingdom:)  Our German friend Thomas did provide a tip that really helped me remember the German name for the castle: In German the name Neu-schwan-stein translates to New-Swan-Stone.   The English and German words are very similar! When I first tried to pronounce it, I said the German words for New-Swine-Stone, which elicited a few more chuckles.  I eventually got it right and now I will never forget how to say Neuschwanstien! 

The castle dates back to 1892 and is definitely worth a visit. It's about an hour outside of Munich in Southern Bavaria and easy to reach by car or public transportation.  Consider buying your tickets for an indoor tour in advance because you can only enter the castle with a tour guide at a set time. By the time we arrived, it was too late to book an indoor tour. However, we enjoyed seeing it from outside and walking around the little town below. Here are a few pictures of this fairytale castle:

Next stop...Munich!!!

It all started with a love story. In June 1899, in the small town of Solofra, Italy, Francesco D'Alessio wrote a beautiful love letter to Antoinette Maffei, asking her to confirm her love for him.  They were married in November 1903,  moved to New York City in May 1907 and ended up having 13 children.  Over 100 years later their great grandson and his family went back to Solofra to see where it all began. That great grandson is Chris' dad and I was very happy to be a part of this adventure!

Solofra, Italy is located approximately an hour southeast of Naples and 40 minutes inland from Amalfi.  It is not a typical vacation destination.  In fact, if you were to look up Hotels in Solofra on Tripadvisor, you'd find only one listing.  Yet, this town of about 12,000 people is one of Italy's most famous towns for the tanning of leather and it is said that some of Italy's best leather products originate here.  So it's not really a surprise that, in the old days, Chris' ancestors ran their own leather tannery. 

For about a generation, some contact was maintained with family who stayed behind in Italy.  But as the older generations passed away, contact was lost with family in the old country. Luckily, Chris' great great aunt Josie was extremely organized and kept many photos, letters, passports and other documents in immaculate condition. Therefore, we had a lot of clues,  so we decided to go check things out and see what we could turn up.  At the very least it would be fascinating to see the town where Antoinette and Francesco had grown up, been married, and lived many years of their lives.  

We thought the most logical place to begin was at the main church in Solofra, St. Michael's Cathedral. During his childhood, Chris' dad (also named Michael!) heard many stories about the beautiful cathedral so it was a real treat for him to finally see it in person. We arrived in town around 11am on a Friday and took a spin around the central part of town, then entered the cathedral to find a beautiful place:

After a few minutes of poking around, we were approached by a man speaking to us in Italian, which was partially understood by Chris' dad.  He introduced himself as Mario.  We soon found out that Mario also knew some Spanish, and between my Spanish and Chris' dad's Italian, we deduced that he was probably a priest at the cathedral.  We later learned that Mario was actually Monsignor Mario Pierro, who serves at St. Michael's along with two  priests. We described why we had come to Solfra, and showed him some of the old pictures and records that we'd scanned, as well as the old love letter written by Chris' great great grandfather to his great great grandmother in the late 1800's.  Since the love letter was written in Italian, Mario was able to read it and was clearly moved by the words.  He showed us around the cathedral, explaining its history which we tried to piece together with our combined Italian and Spanish. Chris' Latin and Mom Barbier's French also came in handy! 

While I was taking pictures of the church, a lady offered to take our picture with Mario.  She first spoke to me in Italian, to which I responded in Spanish.  Upon hearing Spanish,  her eyes lit up and she asked me in Spanish where I was from.  We got to talking and I learned that her family had left Solofra to move to Argentina, where she was born and raised.  She recently moved to Italy to be closer to the rest of her family. When I asked her for their last name I was amazed to learn that it was the same as as Chris' great great grandmother's - Maffei!  While Maffei is a common name in Italy, especailly in the town of Solofra, we still found this quite remarkable and immediately began comparing notes.  Since they spoke Spanish it was much easier for me to communicate.  We could not believe the coincidence and decided that our families must share some common ancestry somewhere along the line. 

We were soon shown all around the beautiful cathedral by Mario, including some of the oldest portions of the church, dating back to the 1300's, where many people do no get to visit.  The Argentinian Maffei's accompanied us, which was super helpful because they spoke fluent Italian and Spanish. Therefore they translated Mario's Italian into Spanish and then I could translate the Spanish into English.  It was great teamwork and we had a lot of fun! We spent almost an hour talking to Mario, the other Maffei's, and touring around the church.

After heading back outside, we met another man passing by, who Mario engaged in conversation.  It turned out that he had known one of our distant relatives in Solofra, whose picture we had brought along.  A few minutes later, he came back with a lady who currently lives at the address we had found from ages ago, and is actually the niece of one of our relatives from Solofra, a few generations removed.  Solofra is indeed a small town.  

At one point, Chris was going to leave to feed our parking meter since our time was up.  He was stopped and told that he didn't need to pay for parking in Solofra because he was family. I guess word travels fast in Solofra! 

We spent some more time talking to our new friends.  While the other family of Maffei's had to get going, Monsignor Mario invited us to have lunch with him.   We immediately accepted and accompanied him to his home in the back of the church where he prepared a feast for us! We had spagetti (al dente of course), homemade sauce, fresh olives, locally produced pepperoni, an amazing eggplant appetizer, marinated artichoke hearts, fresh mozzarella, homemade white wine, fresh bread, olive oil and an amazing dessert. I was so full from lunch that I couldn't eat dinner that night! 

We spent many hours with Monsignor Mario enjoying great food and conversation, and even got to meet some of his friends and family who stopped by for a bit.  The next thing we knew, it was around 5pm and we had to head back to our home base in Minori.  Before leaving, Mario gave us 3 bottles of home-made wine and a few mementos from the church.  We couldn't thank him enough for his hospitality. All we could say is Grazie Assai Assai Assai (Assai means very in Italian). We never could have imagined what a great day we would have had in Solofra, and how many wonderful people we would meet.  This was truly a highlight of our trip.

I think Francesco and Antionette are probably smiling somewhere up above ;-)