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Published: October 24th 2005
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The road to Meniago
Some of the obstacles on the road to Meniago 18/10/2005 - We finally made it to Maniago after traveling through some very beautiful countryside. The roads were so narrow, when we came into the towns the mirrors of the car almost scrape the edges of the buildings. Robert is becoming very professional at avoiding accidents with the locals on tractors and those three wheeled, two stroke utility vehicles they drive.
We went directly to a place called Campagna, 5kms east of Maniago. Wel, almost directly, we had to stop and ask for directions once, the guy we asked just happened to be a cousin of the folks we were looking for! The people we were to visit are my mothers cousins. Unfortunately they were not home so we were to return in the evening.
We found a place to stay then took a walk around the piazza. A lovely place and as we found out the piazza is the bustling hub of Maniago after 7pm. There was a war memorial next to our hotel and we found the name Candido on some of the memorial plaques. We’re not quite sure if they are directly related to my grandfather. Chances are they would be as they were a big
The road to Meniago 2
The mountains are always not far away family in the district.
We got to Fernanda and Franco’s place late as we got lost again, things always look so different driving in the dark. They were very kind and prepared something for us to eat and of course to drink. Franco’s home made vino was easy to drink and he was generous with his servings!
Now that we were more used to some key words in Italian, it made for much easier conversation. As all Italians do, they made their own grappa. Franc explained that he does not like waking up with a headache and so his grappa is not as strong as most.
I seem to remember Jean saying the same thing about his wine and we must admit we also prefer this style of drink to any which are made with too much preservative, nothing like drinking natures products without the human additives.
We left Maniago the following morning after visiting the cemetery in Campagna. The cemetery is full of folks from the Candido family. They are obviously one of the districts bigger families. We photographed all of the headstones we could find which we thought may be related to Lorenza’s mothers
The road to Meniago 3
The benefits of Northern Italy in low season, no crowds! side of the family and hopefully it may help us make some sense of the old photographs we took copies of earlier at Tante Maria’s place.
Our time in Italy has been a lot of fun, even if it has only been a few days. The scenery is obviously lovely, but the people make the place very, very special. We found the Northern Italians to be friendly and only too willing to try and help us out. No wonder they added so much to Australian society when so many of them immigrated to our country back in the 1950’s and 60’s.
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