Don Campolongo's Pictures of Verbicaro

This is a page of pictures from Don Campolongo's August 2006 trip to Verbicaro. If you somehow missed the other pages of pictures of Verbicaro, click here: Page 1. I've never met Don in person. He contacted me when he started planning his trip to Verbicaro. When Don returned from his trip, he sent many good pictures to me and agreed to let me put them on my site.

How to use this page: All of the pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them. When you click, your browser will open the enlarged picture in a separate window. To return to this page, close the window that has the enlarged picture in it. Underlined text are links that take you to other web sites with more information on the subject. The pictures are copyrighted and cannot be used or reproduced without the permission of Don Campolongo. The graphics are also copyrighted and cannot be used without the permission of Steve Fazzio.

Verbicaro - Searching for Ghosts
by Don Campolongo

Sometimes half the problems in a vacation is just getting there.  This was the case during our recent vacation to Italy.  We grossly underestimated the effort and the stress of travel.  On several past vacations we had traveled with busses and tours where the hassle and planning efforts were done by tour guides, bus drivers and others.  But when you do it yourself all the responsibility rests squarely on your shoulders.  We planned the logistics for the vacation out well in advance, but even so we were not prepared for the effort required to make it all happen. 

Our plan was to fly from Philadelphia to the Rome airport, go by train to the Rome Terminal, take a train to Paola, take a train to Cosenza, rent a car, drive to Maratea, drive to Verbicaro, return the car to Cosenza, take a train to Paola, then Rome, then Chiusi, pick up another car, drive to Cortona and eventually go by train back to Rome.  It all looked good on paper.  Ann Puschak, our travel agent, made the reservation and bought the train tickets.

Upon arrival at the Rome airport we collected our luggage and dragged it the Leonardo Express that would take up to the Roma Termini to catch the train to Paola.  We had to haul our luggage on the train and then, because the train was full, almost hold it in our laps during the 30 minute trip.  It was hot and cramped.  In the termini we had just 15 minutes to find our train south and then get ourselves on board and find our seats.  All very stressful.  Our seats 72 and 73 were in a second class compartment with a very nice Italian family.  The train left on time at 11:15 AM.  In about an hour the family began to get out delicious sandwiches for lunch.  We had nothing but a half bottle of water.  After awhile they realized we had no lunch and shared a glass of iced tea and then later a sandwich, we were extremely grateful and gave them two chocolates from the plane.  They were glad for the candy and nice traveling companions.  They were on vacation to Sicily.

At 4:30 the train pulled into Paola station.  We got off and waited for a connecting train to Cosenza.  This train was a local.  We boarded at 5:05 and went through the longest train tunnel I have ever traveled through.  Finally we arrived in Cosenza and began looking for the Avis car rental.  The Avis office that was supposed to be at the station was in another part of town.  We took a taxi to get there.  Now our first real problem.  The manager of the office was nice but he soon left for the day leaving two clowns to prepare the rental papers for us.  We would have preferred an automatic car but instead got a Fiat with manual shift.  We had prepaid for the car, but they kept trying to sell us additional insurance.  It took forever to complete the paperwork, they couldn’t get their computer to work and finally filled out the forms by hand.  They were totally incompetent.  Luckily the cab driver had stayed around and helped us to plan our route to Maratea.  As evening approached we drove north on the A3 toward our destination.  By this point we were very tired.  We stopped for a slice of pizza at a service station on the highway.  We left the A3 at Lauria hours later and took a two lane over the mountains toward Maratea.  By now it was totally dark.  The driving got worse many switch backs and hairpin turns, really rough.  We were driving on the narrowest road along a cliff above the sea looking for our hotel.  At some points along the way the road became one lane.  We asked several people and finally found our hotel the Villa Cheta Elite in Acquafredda di Maratea at 9:45.  By this point we were at the end of our rope.

We began our vacation by three nights at the Villa Cheta Elite in Acquafredda di Maratea in the Basilicata region.  This was an old restored villa hanging on the cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean Sea on route S18.  As I said before getting to this hotel was a real challenge, but it was well worth it.  We arrived late at night on the first day totally exhausted.  We walked into the lobby and the woman behind the desk addressed us by name and quickly showed us to our room.  The hotel staff actually cared that we had a difficult time getting there.  They told us to hurry to the dining room as the kitchen would soon be closing and they wanted us to get a dinner.  The staff took charge of us bringing our luggage from the car and then re-parking the car at an appropriate location.  While this was going on we raced to the dining room and had fresh mozzarella, peppers and bread it was wonderful and just enough to eat at this late hour.

The next morning we chose from a buffet breakfast and ate alfresco on the patio.  The waiter brought us the menu to choose our dinner for the evening meal.  We made our selections then explored the grounds before leaving for Verbicaro.

Getting to Calabria was not easy.  Getting to Verbicaro was even more difficult.  No one from my family had ever been back in over 100 years.  I speak no Italian and there was little chance in such a small town that many people would speak English.  So why did I want to go there?  Basically I was searching for ghosts.  Hoping to find a connection, a thread to the past some evidence of where I had come from.  I was hoping, maybe beyond what was reasonable that I could find more information to connect to my family tree.  I was hoping that I would meet someone, anyone that might be related or would care that I had come back to see my roots.  Also I have seen the web site that Steve Fazzio had created and I wanted to go there myself.  Ruth and I both knew that it was a long shot and getting there would be extremely difficult.  But we went anyway.

Vincenzo Errico talked about his ideas of preserving the town and his efforts to make it attractive as a tourist destination.  Vincenzo’s grandfather had come to America and his father had been born in San Francisco but he became homesick and returned to Verbicaro, so Vincenzo was born here.  Vincenzo was trained for five years in Florence and is responsible for the restorations in the church.

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