Going Back to My Roots [Pratola Serra]

Well, I finally started sorting through our Europe pictures. I'm trying to go through them chronologically, from when we left Boston in mid-May until we got back in mid-July. I'll try to give a little summary of each place as well; maybe Kimberly will come in later on and give her two cents. Here we go...

Kimberly's new friends (Zia Nina is seated all the way to the right)

Our airline tickets to Rome were bought with frequent flier miles. Although that meant that we didn't have to pay for the tickets, it did mean that our flight path was kind of ridiculous: Boston -> Frankfurt -> Munich -> Rome. We were also somewhat fortunate, as we arrived the day after Alitalia was on strike and Lufthansa had to cancel a bunch of flights. Despite the crazy airline schedule, we had no problems with any of our flights and didn't miss any connections.

When we arrived in Rome, my father and his cousin were there, flowers in hand for Kimberly, waiting for us.

My father was born in Italy during WWII then came to the US in the late 60's [Interesting Historical Note that I Just Learned from Wikipedia: Just 10 days before my father was born, the government of Italy, having recently removed Mussolini from power, sided with the Allies and declared war on Nazi Germany]. He moved back to his hometown of Pratola Serra, with his sister, about 2 weeks before Kimberly and I were scheduled to arrive. Initially, we were going to spend some time in Rome, then work our way down to visit him.

After the 14 hours or so of flying, it was nice to have some familiar faces pick us up at the airport.

Pratola Serra is located about 3 hours south of Rome, to the east of Naples. It is located in the region of Campania (campania is the Italian word for farm or farmland, so that should tell you a little something about the region) within the province of Avellino. The town was devastated by an earthquake in the early 1980's, from which it is only recently recovering.

Sunset through the Campania mountains

Kimberly and I spent two quiet days in Pratola, acclimating to the time change, trying to learn /understand Italian, and eating. My Zia Rita (actually a cousin) made us a welcome feast that could have fed 3 times as many people as there were present. Then Zia Nina (also my godmother) provided us more than enough sustenance for the rest of our stay.

One night we took the customary after-dinner walk and made our way to pick up Zia Nina, who was gossiping with her brood of old women friends. Of course, all these old, southern Italian women immediately took to Kimberly, the small, blond, white girl. They offered coffee. And cookies. And crotcheted things [The older woman right in the middle of the picture at the top gave us a crotcheted table runner, which is beautiful. She offered us more beautiful crotcheted things if we were to come back with a baby. Now that's how you do it!].

A few days later, Kimberly's mom and sister joined us and we started doing 'touristy things:' we went to Pompeii, saw a local election, visited a local palace, and went to a pre-Christian church and catacombs. [Pictures and stories from these places will come soon]

We finished up our time in Pratola the way we spent most of our time in Italy: eating. Rita, once again, made us a feast where we must have had at least 12 courses. The cake below was one of 3 desserts.

Rita, presenting us with our dessert. Her husband is in the back, startled.

Then for our going away meal, my Zia Nina made us her 'World Famous' chicken cutlets and eggplant parmigiana (Kimberly's mom 'borrowed' the recipe for the eggplant parm while observing Nina, and we've been replicating the parm ever since, with pretty good results. Come visit, we'll make you some). We left with our bellies content, moving on to new adventures in the north.

Pratola was the perfect start to our trip: Kimberly and her family got their introduction to Italy with friends and relatives; we were able to get up to speed on the language and the culture; and we learned that eating would be a large part of our trip. A very large part.

The Pratola Serra pictures are now up on Flickr.