Italy - 100 Days and Nights

Tracking Down The Family: Recapping the Adventure

Vito ValentinettiNovember 29, 2017

My month long journey across Italy started with a simple goal to discover if I could finally ditch my passport by claiming Italian citizenship. To recap, Italians base citizenship on blood, so if you can trace back your line of ancestors with paperwo...

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Tracking Down the Family Part 5: San Vito Chietino, Abruzzo

Vito ValentinettiSeptember 25, 2017

Through some online sleuthing, I discovered that my father's family hailed from another seaside Italian village. San Vito Chietino is about halfway down the east coast from Venice, and I manged to work in a four hour layover while making my run to th...

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Part 4 Tracking Down the Family: Polizzi Generosa, Sicily

Vito ValentinettiSeptember 24, 2017

It's been twenty years since I last saw my Sicilian cousins, so when Cousin Franco invited me up from Palermo to their mountainside village, I jumped at the chance to see Polizzi Generosa. Sicily boasts some big mountains around the island, an...

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Tracking Down the Family Part 3: Collesano, Sicily

Vito ValentinettiSeptember 22, 2017

My next stop on the family history tour was twelve kilometers straight into the mountains and to the ancestral home of my grandmother, Basilia LoPresti. Bus schedules from Campofelice to Collesano seemed few and far between so I started to hitch on t...

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Tracking Down the Family Part 2: Campofelice di Roccella, Sicily

Vito ValentinettiSeptember 20, 2017

Family lore and and a World War I Ohio registration card led me to my first stop, Campofelice di Roccella, a beachside village thirty minutes east by train from Palermo. I was looking to find some information on my mother’s great-grandfather, who in ...

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Tracking Down the Family Part 1: Palermo, Sicily

Vito ValentinettiSeptember 18, 2017

Despite half my family being from there, I didn’t know much about Sicily. In previous adventures around Italy, I was told by a kindly old woman that Sicily was “full of robbers and thieves.” Another meaner old woman running an apartment saw my last n...

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Photo Gallery: Enjoying The Good Life @ Siren Festival 2017

Vito ValentinettiAugust 7, 2017

Italian beaches. Italian food. Italian old world cities. Italian indie rock. I'm back at the beautiful Siren Festival in (you guessed it) Italy. Here's a taste of the life below and even more pictures from my trips in 2015 and last summer. Emidio ...

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100 Nights of Summer: The Siren Festival 2017 Recap

Vito ValentinettiAugust 3, 2017

Day #61: Festival 9 I absolutely adore Italy's Siren Festival located on the west coast of the Adriatic Sea. This boutique fest, set in the classic old town of Vasto, filled with narrow cobbled streets, and sunset views of the beach, features a curat...

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The Scene @ Vasto Siren Festival 2016

Vito ValentinettiJuly 27, 2016

Where Are You This Week: I caught a plane out of Romania to Italy, the land of my ancestors. I comically can't speak any Italian, but I understand just about every word on the menu. I'm returning for a second time to the Siren Festival in Vasto, a po...

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Photo Gallery: Exploring Italy @ Vasto Siren 2016

Vito ValentinettiJuly 26, 2016

This weekend, I hit the half-way point of the 100 Nights of Summer Tour. With eight weeks of straight festivaling, I needed to refresh my body and soul, so it was off to Italy for beaches, pasta, and the Siren Festival. And some wine. Always plenty o...

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