Writing Assignment: Travel Studies

Assignment: ~Where is your ancestral home? Most of us have roots in several places. Pick one city or country you'd like to visit,find it on a map, and explore some travel websites, just for practice. A few of my favorites are: multi-map, Rick Steves,Cheap Flights, Budget Travel.

Such a delicious topic for today's writing assignment from Travelin Oma's School Days. Travel. I love to travel. I really really love to travel. I've travelled more than some, but not as much as I'd like, not as much as I dream. There are places I want to visit and revisit with such longing I feel a little pang in my heart when I think of them. I've had just a taste which has only fueled my appetite further, rather than quench it. I have repeated bouts of incurable wanderlust.

My ancestral home is not singular--I'm "Heinz 57" as my mother calls it. But, my paternal grandmother was born in the US to first generation Italian immigrants; her siblings were born in Italy in a little tiny town near Turin, called Villanova. My family took a trip when I finished college, to visit distant relations who still reside there. It is indeed tiny. I photographed my mother as she stood at one end of town and I stood at the other. It's hardly map-able, if that's a word. The village cemetery bears the names of my ancestors over and over. There is a beautiful park with a pond where our relatives hosted us for a magnificently catered meal. One of several magnificent meals on the same day. The food just kept coming. Later we were guests in the home of my grandmother's cousin Olga--something of a matriarch in the community. I am quite certain that nothing happened in that little town without her knowledge or even her approval. We feasted some more, we sampled cheeses from their wine cellar--enormous wheels of pungent cheese. Some excellent, some so strong my eyes stung! Hospitality was the name of their game and well played it was. An evening I hope I never forget.

We spent a few days in Torino. Turin. Not one of Italy's romantic show-case cities but rich with culture and history just the same. Once occupied by Napoleon. Once the capitol of Italy. Site of famed battles of ages and ages past. Home to Alfa Romeo and Fiat and also the shroud of turin. Which I did not see. Birthplace of snacking chocolate (bars, pieces) as we have come to know it. Aha! My love affair with good chocolate must be genetic. Also touted as the origin of cafe lifestyle with charming little eateries and their tiny tables and chairs, sparkling beverages, handmade hazelnut chocolates, simple sandwiches. Places for greeting and meeting and sipping. And then, then there was the gelato. Everywhere I turned, wonderful gelato. I confess I enjoyed it every day of my trip, sometimes more than once a day. Not a fashion mecca like other Italian cities, but a wonderful place for history, culture, and gastronomic delights.

If I could go back today (there's that pang in my heart!), I'd spend more time at Olga's home, learning more about my ancestry and their day to day lives in a town where everyone is related. She would teach me to cook meatballs and gnocchi. I'd spend more time on the piazzas, visit the Cinema Museum. I'd travel to the top of that distant hill to visit the mysterious cathedral, and I'd remember the mysterious story that surrounds it. Emiglio (goodness his teeth were awful), pointed it out one evening as it's spires jutted against the evening sky. He told a story that fascinated me at the time but whose details I've ruefully forgotten. I'll go back to that gorgeous lake and the water-front cafe and sip ultimate lemonade in a fabulous narrow cylinder of a glass. I'd go back tomorrow. For any reason. To do anything, to do everything. To just be there.