Yesterday we did the drive to Italy, including the long tunnel under Mont Blanc (about a 15 minute drive) and the many many tunnels once we were in Italy.
Our first stop was Casale Popolo, my ancestral homeland (of the "Costanzo" branch of the family). Casale Popolo is a small village in Italy that doesn't actually exist any more but is basically a suburb of nearby Casale Monferrato (where we are actually staying). We are about halfway between Turin and Milan.
We found a nice restaurant in Casale Popolo for lunch ... a typical Italian meal with primo (pasta), secundo (meat & salad), dolce (desert) and coffee. We were stuffed! We didn't speak any Italian so we just got the chef's recommendations. Along with a mezzo litre of vino rosso and a boatload of bread.
Here is downtown Popolo ...
We dropped by the local cemetery to pay our respects to previous generations of Costanzo's ...
We felt very fortunate that one of the first crypts that we came across was for a Costanzo!
However we soon found that "Costanzo" is one of the most common names in old Popolo!
Yes, these are all Costanzo families, and that's not even the half of them. Seems like every third person in Popolo is either a Costanzo or married one. If you plan to do any genealogy research here set aside at least a couple of months. It will be more difficult by the fact that all the Costanzo women are either Maria or Francesca and all the men are Giuseppe or Pietro (fun fact these are also the names of all my ancestors).
We also found only one "Palena" (my great-grandmother is Francesca Palena)
This crypt contained a "Giuseppe Palena" - could be my great-great grandfather? But like I say a very common name, and there was no "Maria Guseno Palena" (my great-great-grandmother).
We also saw a few Costanzo businesses on the way into town, one florist (they had a giant sign by the highway) and this business that we walked past in Casale Monferrato:
Casale Monferrato is a beautiful little town, and I think we're the only tourists in the whole place.
We arrived at our Airbnb and - following the directions - took the elevator up to the 4th floor and checked into the apartment "on the right".
OK actually we had taken the wrong elevator. A trip down and then up and we made it into our proper apartment, whew!
After a large lunch we decided to just get a couple of "apperitivo's" for dinner. The board in the picture below is a "kitchen sampler" that came with the drinks.
... and we stopped by a specialty wine store to sample some of the local vintages.
A nice first day in Italy! Today we are going to explore Casale Monferrato, although we are expecting thunderstorms!
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