Terrific Troia

Well, it is our first day in Brindisi and our first day out of Troia. It really was like a dream being in Troia and the place exceeded both of our expectations.....

Troia is situated on a hill, this is the view.... it goes on and on, and is breathtaking.

These are some of the old guys of Troia sitting on benches chit chatting the night away.  Very typical.  They watch you as you pass and talk about you as soon as you are one step away. hilarious.
When we first arrived in Foggia, we had to take a bus to Troia. Unfortunately, the airconditioning did not work and the bus was TOTALLY filled with school kids. I say unfortunately because the heat, curvy roads and yelling kids had me on the verge of yacking. Thank the good Lord that never happened because the kids would have been yelling and I would have surely heaved on some kid since we were cramped so tightly.....there was no getting out of it.

Moving on, we got off in Troia at around 2pm and stared walking down the street to find a hotel only to find the streets completely empty. It was like a ghost town. We could hear people in their homes, forks hitting plates and smell the wonderful smells of there kitchens. Finally, we saw an elderly lady on the street and asked her where a hotel is. Before she responded she, politely, asked as where we were from and what were were doing Troia. As soon as I told her my father was from there she explained where to find a hotel. Before we committed to a hotel, we called a fellow by the name of Matteo Prencipe (my dad's cousin) to see what he recommended. I had never met Matteo and only knew of him through meeting his daughters (Maria and Giusy) over facebook. Well Matteo was working but dropped everything to pick us up and take us to his home to feed us. When I asked him about a hotel he would just laugh at me and tell me not to worry. I'm not really sure how to explain Matteo..... How do you describe a guy that stops working the minute a stranger calls only to serve them. Matteo is a traditional man who seems to know everyone in town and gets along with them all. A stern man that treats everyone equally and diplomatically. Then there is his wife Santina. A woman who is always smiling and as gentle as they come. She too took us into her house like we were her children. To sum it up, Troia would not have been even close to what it was without the two of them.

From Left to Right, we have Santina, Matteo, Maria (hilarious) Livorno, and Jon.

It is a strange feeling going into a town and feeling like a complete stranger. It is even more bizarre looking at your family waving at you on the train a couple of days later and feeling like you're leaving your town. Everyone accepted us as their own. Matteo laughed when I suggested that I am a stranger in these parts. Mario Lo Storto even yelled at me saying "don't you understand, once you're Troiano you're always Troiano."

The personalities of small town Italy are like out of a movie. Apparently my grandfather and Matteo's father were the ones that slaughtered the pigs, that people kept in their home, at Christmas time. Yes you read that correctly. The two of them would slaughter hundreds of pigs within the months of January and February. It's funny to me that people remember how nice and comical the pig slaughterer was. :)
Heather and I have never eaten as much in our lives as we did in Troia. People in Troia do not take no for an answer when they offer you food. They only ask you if you want more to be polite but, make no mistake about it, you're getting seconds.

This is a seafood feast that Matteo cooked up for us. The dish on the left was Jon's all time favourite, fried sardines, salmon, and some sort of delicious shell fish we can't remember the name of.

 This is Vittorio!! He bought Heather delicious Nutella, and Torrone gelato!! He treated us incredibly.
We met many people in Troia and family members that we both fell in love with. People there did not want anything from us except to know a little bit about us. I will certaily go back there not only because I have a connection there, but we truly love the people we met.

I went to Troia looking for stories about my father but I found a whole lot more than just stories. People in Troia are not in a rush to do anything. They keep their traditions and, above all, take hospitality very seriously especially if you're family.

This is a picture of an old photo that Antonio Livorno brought to show us.  Jons family is on the lower level, distracted Jon, Lilian, Vincenzo, and grumpy Teresa.

Matteo took us to the cemetary in Troia to see the gravestones of many of Jons family members.  He discovered that there was a photo of Vincenzo there with his parents (Jons grandparents).
CIAO