The third part of our trip was to visit Italian relatives and see if we could get some official birth and marriage papers. This would be very difficult, seeing that neither Kim nor I know Italian, but we had Mike! He lives in Chicago and is the husband of the very good friend of my husband's aunt, and who in his retirement is fixing up his home in Rippacondida, Italy - plus he would be there while we are visiting. How about that?
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| driving a main street Rippacondida |
Our hotel reservations were in a town a few miles away called Rionero because Rippacondida has no hotels at all. Mike and a cousin named Donato came to the hotel so we could follow them to Donato's mother's house where we had dinner and tried to talk. Good thing we had brought lots of pictures to share.
The next day we went back and even though it was Saturday, Donato had asked a friend to ask the official who was also a friend - it is a very small town - if he would open the municipal building for us. He did. He also found and made copies of the marriage and birth certificates for my husband's grandparents.
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| view from Mike's upstairs |
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| Rippacondida in the late afternoon |
Mike showed us around the town which has five very beautiful churches and a very lovely town garden. We visited the church where Grandparents Teresa and Vito Antonio were married plus had a wonderful lunch, made by Mike, at his house. Then we took a short drive to a small festival. The countryside was especially pretty with the trees changing colors and the brown fields after harvest.
Dinner was with Donato's family and included more conversation because we discovered 'Google Translator!'
What a wonderful time we had because we stepped way out of our comfort zone. Next is to get up early, drive back to Naples and catch the train to Rome. Enjoy Rome one more night before catching another train, this one to the airport.
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