People rather than big sites reward visitors to Southern Italy

 

Pasta-making at Agriturismo Regio Tratturo

Big sites and important museums are few in rural Campania, a Southern Italian region dotted with hilltop towns, known for their "cocina povera," traditional peasant food familiar to many Americans.

The reward for a long drive along a winding road past pastures dotted with wind turbines might be a stay at a farmhouse inn where the owners roll out sheets of fresh pasta on the dining room table, and tempt their guests with homemade cakes for breakfast.

Always a steep climb in the hill town of Greci

Perhaps you will visit a 15th-century hilltop village such as Greci, the town where my grandfather was born in 1901. And if it's a Sunday, you might snag reservations for a three-hour lunch at a countryside winery.

Pizza-making at CorteCorbo Winery

It might sound like a cliché to call this the "real Italy" but those words define a part of the country so far untouched by the crushing crowds in cities such as Rome and Florence.

If this sounds like your kind of travel, then take a train to the nearest small town that has a car rental agency, and spend a few days exploring between visits to more well-known areas.

Family connections draw my husband and I off-the-beaten path almost each time we visit Italy. 

Our first visits were to towns in Sicily, Calabria and Campania where Tom's grandparents were born. This spring, we made our fourth visit to Greci, the town my grandfather, Nicolas Pucci, left at age two when his parents followed uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters to Canton, Ohio to seek work in the brick factories.

A statue in Greci honoring war hero Skanderbeg 

A statue in Greci's town square honors George Skanderbeg, an  Albanian nobleman and military leader who answered a call to help the Italians defeat French-supported Insurrectionists in the 15th century. Seeking to escape the Ottoman invasion of Albania, the Catholic soldiers accepted an offer from the King of Naples to relocate in 51 towns scattered throughout Italy.

The communities call themselves "Arbereshe,'' and preserve an ancient Albanian-Italian dialect still taught in some schools with government grants to support cultural awareness.

This sign in Greci welcomes visitors in English and Abereshe

Our first stop is always a visit with Rita Di Minno, 79, a native of Greci who lived for a while in Australia. As an English speaker, she serves as the unofficial ambassador to American visitors, welcoming many into her home to look at books and pictures about the history of Greci.

Rita outside her home in Greci

The  population is declining (down to 400 from around 700 two years ago), as it is in small towns all over Italy. A bed and breakfast and small restaurant closed recently, leaving just the pharmacy, two churches, an ATM and a bar that serves pizza on Saturdays and Sundays.

Many of the houses are owned by Italians from other parts of Italy, Ukrainian refugees and a few Americans ex-pats who have come to explore their roots. While walking around, we met John Pastor from Akron, Ohio, whose  great-grandparents were born here. He and his wife live part-time in the two-story, two-bathroom home they bought for $55,000. 

John Pastor from Akron, Ohio 

It was John's mother's first cousin, John Mazzarella of Florida, who founded an organization called Greci Cousins. With John's help, my family and others traced our ancestry to one of 15 original Albanian families who settled here. Although we know of no direct relatives, everyone is considered a "cousin" because people in the town mostly married each other.

"There are many people with the name Pucci here," John told me. "You are in good company."

A close friend from your home town, who is not a direct relative, is called a paisan -  a fellow countryman or compatriot.

At home near Greci with Maria and Dante

Two of our favorite paisans are Maria Castielli and her husband, Dante Molinario who live 30 minutes from Greci in nearby Ariano Irpino. Maria's mother was born in Greci, but Maria was raised in England so speaks fluent English as does Dante who worked for a while in Toronto.

They generously welcome us into their home for dinner when we visit. In the past, they shared homemade prosciutto from a pig they killed themselves and wild asparagus from their garden. This time, Maria prepared an antipasta called “Cheat Pizza,” pizza dough on the bottom filled with tomato sauce and cheese and topped with a flaky pastry. Dante made us a special pasta with their homemade tomato sauce and pork sausage. They don't kill pigs anymore, but they preserve their own peppers, olives, asparagus, tomato sauce, all stored in huge basement pantry.

Dante serves the pasta 

Maria with her Cheat Pizza

Our home base for a three-day stay in the area was Agriturismo Regio Tratturo, a farmhouse inn reached along a narrow, winding road, once a path used by shepherds to move herds and flocks from one pasture to another. Today the hillside are dotted with wind turbines and olive groves. 

The view from Agriturismo Regio Tratturo

The delightful owner, Antonietta, takes care of four rooms and a restaurant where everything on the menu is homemade from ingredients grown or raised by she and her husband, Rinaldo and their staff. They host large groups for weddings and birthdays. When we checked in, they were busy making fresh pasta on the dining table for 50 guests coming the next day.

Antonietta her ciambella

"Sweet or savory," Antonietta would ask us about what type of breakfast we would prefer. If we said savory, then an omelette would appear along with fresh bread, jam, homemade peach juice and little biscotti cookies. 

A choice of "sweet" one morning produced slices of a ciambella, a Campanian-style breakfast bundt cake flavored with Strega, a sweet, yellow herbal liqueur made in nearby Benevento.

Irpina in the province of Avelino is this area's wine region. Although not as big or well-known as Tuscany, its mountains and volcanic soils help a scattering of family-owned wineries produce three out of four of Campania's DOCG (Controlled and Guaranteed Designation of Origin) wines. 

Looking for something to do on Sunday when almost everything is closed, we found CorteCorbo Winery in the town of Castelfranci, 35 miles from Ariano.

On Sundays, the winemaker, Antonia Romano and her son, Antonio, host a three-hour lunch and tour at the house that belonged to her grandfather. 

After a GPS mix-up that took us down a one-lane road to a bridge that was closed, we recovered, and after an hour and half's worth of driving, arrived at noon to find the outside terrace filled with guests, including a group of Americans stationed at a naval base in Naples. 

In between pours of their six wines made from three varieties of local grapes, we snacked on an antipasti spread of roasted pumpkin, cheeses, eggplant parmesan  and salami while Antonia taught everyone how to stretch dough and make pizzas.

Antipasti on the terrace

Antonia supervises the  pizza-making

Tom readies a pizza for the wood-fired oven

It was around 2 p.m. when we finally gathered in the dining room for a sit-down dinner. Antonio played and sang "Country Roads" on his guitar while we toasted our hosts, and stayed until 4 p.m  enjoying pasta, meatballs and tiramisu. 

New friends and a view of Castelfranci from CorteCorbo winery

Is it a cliché to call this the "real Italy," especially with so many English-speaking Americans around? Perhaps, but I prefer to remember it as special Sunday in the Italian countryside with generous hosts and new friends. It doesn't get much more real than that.