Visit Your Italian Ancestral Hometown

04/04/2023

BUONA PASQUA! My May tour to Italy is sold out. Now people are signing up for my October tour. Hurry, before that one too sells out.

09/05/2022

Join my October tour: Sicily, Calabria, Naples area, Abruzzo, Rome. E-mail me at: [email protected]

03/05/2022

Do you want to see Italy and the town of your family roots in Sicily and Calbria? I still have a few more seats available for my October 4-19 which will allow you to do that. Contact me at: [email protected]. Grazie.

28/03/2022

Reminder: if you wish to join my tour of October this is the time to let me know. For details of the tours please see www.italianheritagetours.com then go to section "Tours". Grazie.

Italian Heritage Tours see the best of Italy and the town of your family roots in Abruzzo, Sicily, Calabria, Basilicata, Campania, etc.

21/02/2022

During my tours to Italy we do visit the major tourist places (Rome, Florence, Venice, etc.), but often I include in the tour itinerary one or two days when we go to the little towns where some people in the group have family roots. It is always an emotional event to see them meet for the first time their relatives. Tears are shed. I have been instrumental of numerous such reunions. Here I want to share this most moving reunion.
In 1912 a young couple, Nazzareno and Giuseppina, left their little town in central Italy and came to America. They planned to work, save and then go back. They left their 3 year old daughter Lucia with the grandparents. The couple worked in Cleveland, Ohio, and had three more children; one of them was Dominic. Now and then they sent a package and money to the parents and Lucia. After World Wars I they decided to go back home, but the parents dissuaded them, because things were not good in Italy; they advised to have Lucia join them in America. But young Lucia, not knowing her parents and feeling safe with grandparents, refused to go. In Cleveland Nazzareno and Giuseppina talked to their children about Italy, grandparents and Lucia, but then both died rather young. After their death, their children knew no Italian language and soon all contacts with Italy faded away.
While I was announcing my tours at an Italian Fest in Cleveland, Dominic, an 80 year old man, told he was interested to join my tour. When he told me the name of his parents’ town, I looked in the phone book of that town (I have phone books of all Italy) and found a few families with Dominic’s same last name. I wrote them and explained about Dominic and his parents. Soon I received a letter from them. The letter said: according to what you described, Dominic does have relatives here and one of them is an 84 year old woman called Lucia; she is Dominic's sister. When I gave the news to Dominic, he seemed to faint: he vaguely remembered his parents talking about a sister Lucia left in Italy.
Dominic came to my Italy tour and I made arrangements for him to go to see Lucia. When he got there the entire town was watching and celebrating. The newspaper had a long story about Dominic and Lucia. The paper’s headline said: “Ci hanno impiegato 81 anni per abbracciarsi” (It took them 81 years to embrace each other). When in the evening Dominic came back to the group we wanted to know how was the meeting with his sister. He was so moved that he could not talk; all he said was “I cried all day” and he kept on crying during the rest of the tour.

13/02/2022

Remo (red cap) and his paesani. Italian gelato: how sweet it is!

07/02/2022

In the early 1900 a very large number of people left Italy and came to America for a better future. They were young, simple and hard workers; they endured hardship, raised a family and started a successful generation of "Italian-Americans". However, they did not just appear to Ellis Island out of nowhere. They left the town and house where they were born and grew up poor but happy; they left mother, father, brothers, sisters, grandparents, friends and affections. They were true heroes. Later, too busy assuring a good future for their children, they never saw their people and place again. Although today their grandchildren are fully Americanized, in their veins they still have the Italian blood that ran in the veins of the ancestors for centuries. Today they dream of making a pilgrimage to the town of their fathers, visit their humble house, touch the walls in the hope of hearing their voice; they dream of walking on the same cobble stone streets they walked, pray in the same church they prayed, embrace their living relatives and eat the same food and wine as they did. Good news: during our Tours to Italy a couple of days are always reserved just for that. It is an emotional event to go to those small towns and see people embracing their relatives for the first time. A few tears are shed there. If you wish to see the detailed itinerary of those tours please check them in my website and then contact me.
www.italianheritagetours (section "Tours")
Grazie

Grapes and Wine are in the heart and veins of Italians

01/02/2022

Dreaming of visiting your Italian ancestral hometown and meet your living relatives there? With my extended experience, detailed maps and phonebooks of Italy I can make your dream come true.
Contact: [email protected] 800-829-2201; 614-833-5716

Here below: Linda made it to her ancestral hometown in Sicily!

25/01/2022

In Abruzzo, Italy, there is a medieval mountain town called Farindola. The Marzola family lived there for many generations. They owned a small farm with sheep and a donkey. They were poor but happy.
When in early 1900 Vincenzo Marzola heard that America was accepting immigrants, he decided to go. He was 19 years old, had a third grade education and spoke only his Abruzzese dialect; but he was determined to have a better future. He took the ship in Naples. First he did odd jobs in New York and then he got a steady job with the Pennsylvania railroad. Now and then he sent some money to his parents. Time passed and, too busy assuring a good future for his children, Vincenzo never saw his town again. As his people there aged and died, all contacts with them faded away. Later, the only thing that reminded old Signor Vincenzo of his beloved hometown was a small statue of St. Nicola (protector of Farindola) by his bedside, a fig tree and a few grape vines in his backyard.
The story of Vincenzo Marzola represents the story of all Italian immigrants. We know how hard they worked and how devoted they were to their family. They were true heroes!
Today, their grandchildren dream of making a pilgrimage to the town of their heroes. But, alas, a large number of them don’t know where exactly in Italy their folks came from!
Dear Paesani, smile, because I can make your dream come true. To make it possible, besides my personal experience, I have tons of literature, detailed maps and telephone books of Italy to locate your living relatives. Please check all that in my website and then contact me. www.italianheritagetours.com
Yours Remo Faieta, Ph.D.

Fig trees: so dear to Italian-Americans!