DAY 7: Thursday, May 24th: Our flight from Naples left at 2:00 in the afternoon and within less than an hour we had arrived in Palermo!
Before I go on, I need to flashback to last December when Jo Ann's mother (my mother-in-law), Celia Dolores Zaranti, was researching her family tree with her daughter Laurie. They knew their grandfather came from Caccamo, Sicily, but they didn't know any of their relatives, and they weren't even sure if any of them still lived there. So I wrote some letters in Italian to everybody with the same last name in the town of Caccamo and almost immediately I received an email response from Silia, whose husband Pino was a relative! That started a phone and email communication with her family and ours, and soon their oldest son Roberto came to Buffalo to visit! Sadly, none of us knew then that Celia would pass away by the following March, but she had a chance to meet and spend some time with Roberto, and had some great phone conversations with Silia in Sicily. What a beautiful family they are, and now here we were, in Sicily, and we were about to meet the Zarauti Family from Caccamo!
We arrived at the Palermo airport about 3:00 in the afternoon, and Silia and her second son, Sergio, were waiting for us. There were 4 of us with all our luggage, but somehow we all managed to fit everything into their 2 small cars and Silia joked that Jessie's luggage was bigger than her car!
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhczsJVD5wPKfU2S5BVWV_dn-7pltgUxECD_11SxucMhR07gfUmzDi_sos5ShREzAo70AvhjN8fGCqVKl9410fyaugOjK7PDB8cJQlLzXixEoN_SGQjTTKwg0wTH9Z08bmLMFqhHTaN2O6j/s320/Caccamo.Luggage.jpg)
On the way to Caccamo we stopped at a small coffee shop that offered pizza, panini, pastries and gelato and Silia treated us all to a delicious afternoon meal of the variety of foods offered. It was a great start to our first visit to Sicily!
We spent the evening with Silia and her husband Pino and enjoyed a beautiful dinner that they prepared for us. The grilled eggplant was the best I had ever eaten (must get the recipe!), and I will be dreaming of Silia's home- baked bread (homemade in her wood burning oven at their country home) filled with a ricotta stuffing for the rest of my life!
Pino left soon after dinner but he came back shortly afterwards with a platter full of mini gelato cones dipped in chocolate! Delizioso!
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Wonderful, wish I was with you girls in Caccamo. Born there as a child, American through and through, living in New Jersey, but Caccamese is my heart. Bravata is our family name also Guzzo. I'm sure if we do our family tree, somehow we're related. Great to read your story.
ReplyDeleteAdriana
Great blog Gale. Sounds like you Buffalo Girls "did it right".
ReplyDeleteBy the way, your blog, and this page in particular, helped me sort out some of my own family connections. It looks like Jo Ann and I are fifth cousins.
Best regards,
Scott
Ottawa, Canada