Nearly a century after my grandfather's birth, my family and I visited his hometown in Abruzzo
I stood in Guardiagrele’s medieval town square, under the 13th-century Church of Santa Maria Maggiore with a view of the Adriatic sea, impatiently awaiting the van that would bring my aunt, uncle and cousin.
This would be my Uncle Nick’s first visit to Italy since 1971, when he had to cut short a family trip and fly home to Chicago to tend to the family’s restaurant.
He was 17 then and had always regretted not seeing where his father was born.
Now, on the eve of his 70th birthday, my cousin Anna had taken him and my aunt Linda on a two-week trip to Italy, including two nights in here in Guardiagrele.
Though I had done more than my share of travel for the year, when my parents said they were going to Guardiagrele, too, I knew I couldn’t pass this up.
I had flown into Paris, and after a day-long train journey through the Alps and an overnight on the Swiss-Italian border, I continued down the peninsula by train and met my parents in Rome on Sunday afternoon.
Together, we drove to the provincial capital of Chieti to spend the night before continuing on to Guardiagrele, just 30 minutes away in the foothills of the Mailla mountains, overlooking the Adriatic Sea.
My parents and I first visited the local cemetery. My mother’s family name, Di Crescenzo, is an obscure one in the United States, but not in this part of Italy. Walking through the cemetery, I had never seen so many Di Crescenzos in my life. At first I started snapping photos of each one, but then it became too much, as we found dozens, if not more than 100. Not just Di Crescenzo, but all the other names from our family tree — Orlando, Capuzzi and more.
We then met up with our cousin Maria, who is actually my grandfather’s first cousin, though younger than my mother. I had met her 21 years prior, and stayed in her home with her husband, three children and her mother. My parents had met her on a more recent visit, in 2018.
Together, we sat down for a meal at a local restaurant, starting with some wine as we awaited the arrival of Nick, Linda and Anna.
Which is when I found myself standing in the shadow of Santa Maria Maggiore, holding the keys to the two-bedroom apartment Anna had rented for us.
As they pulled up, we all had tears in our eyes, excited to be together in place so meaningful to all of us.
We stashed their bags in our apartment, and walked across the town plaza to meet up with my parents and our cousins for some hugs, laughter and a good meal to kick off our two days together.
Some highlights from the visit:
Anna rented us a beautiful two-bedroom second-floor apartment, with a kitchen, a formal living room with high ceilings, and multiple terraces with views of the sea, just off the town’s main square. We could not have been more comfortable nor more centrally located.
Maria, her sister Giovanna and Giovanna’s daughter, Jessica, live in town and graciously showed us around, and shared stories of family and the town. It was great to reconnect with them, and we vowed it would not be decades before we returned again.
Both Maria and Giovanna took us to the where my grandfather was born. As we stared up at the three story house, Giovanna recalled memories of her siblings playing ball in the streets, and of her sister sitting upstairs and reading on the terrace.
We also made new friends . As we admired two heavy round plaques with the seal of Guardiagrele on one of the neighbor’s houses, we started asking where we could get our own. After several inquiries, the residents of the home with the plaque showed up, speaking English. The husband, Fiori, grew up in the house, and he and his wife now spend half their time in Melbourne, Australia. When we asked him about the plaque, he went upstairs to retrieve an extra one and gave it to my uncle.
Fiori and his wife Claudette then welcomed us into their home for drinks. Nine of us packed into a tiny space. Fiori poured too many scotches and Claudette made limoncello spritzes. Fiori remembered our cousins well, and one of them — Carmela — FaceTimed for a few minutes, adding to the chaos of multiple conversations going on at once. Fiori and Claudette also joined us for pizza that evening.
A local church houses the remains of San Nicola Greco, a tenth-century Eastern Catholic monk who is the co-patron of the town. This may explain the many, many, many Nicholases in our family.
I went to Mass Sunday morning at Santa Chiara, and after I asked a few of the older people how I could have a Mass celebrated in memory of my grandfather Rocco, and whether I might be able to find his baptismal records. They directed me to the parish office and when we asked to have Mass celebrated on my grandfather’s birthday, October 12, the priest said that the town’s Mass that day would be celebrated at the Church of St. Rocco, as it coincides with a local celebration of the feast of St. Rocco. He also spent a couple hours looking for the baptismal document but could not find it. As we waited, I asked for more information about San Nicola Greco, and someone summoned a local professor who shared the saint’s life story and gave us books and holy cards about his life.
Finally, the food: I told my cousins we wanted to eat at places that would give us a flavor of Abruzzese cooking. And we tried it all — spaghetti alla chitarra (egg pasta made with a loom that looks like a guitar) arrosticini (tiny pieces of roasted lamb or sheep skwewered and grilled), pallotte cacio e ova (egg and cheese shaped like a meatball and fried), and for breakfast, Sise delle Monache, a cream filled pastry that translates as “nun’s breasts” (this is unique to two bakeries in Guardigrele, and multiple stories exist as to the origins of the name). The simplest dishes — such as trofie con verdure, solsicce e zafferano (pasta with tiny diced squash, sausage and saffron) or sagnette con ceci (noodles with chickpeas, cooked in a broth flavored with fried lard) — were the best.
After two nights there, we went our separate ways: Nick, Linda and Anna to the Amalfi Coast, and my parents and I to Rome with a stop for lunch in Castel Gandolfo. I continued north back to the Alps aboard the Bernina Express, and my parents flew home the next morning.
We carried with us priceless memories of a trip that brought our past to life and strengthened connections with the people, culture and food that have shaped who we are.
More importantly, we enjoyed every moment of the trip. While having drinks in Fiori and Claudette’s kitchen, a few of us looked at each other and said, “This is so much better than we could have imagined.”
