Bucket list - Italy!

Aunt Grace on her first morning in Sicily

It is rare, the occasion that one gets to check off  an item from one's bucket list. And to complete two in under four months is nearly unheard of. And that both involved a trip to Italy is fantastic luck.

The first, of greatest import.

Our Aunt Grazia (Grace) was born to newly emigrated Sicilian parents in the early 1920s. Remaining in Sicily were three first cousins and their families, corresponded with, but never seen nor touched for a veritable lifetime. The bucket list trip occurred to us on the eve of her 90^th birthday. When, if not now, would she be able to embrace her family?

A furious round of planning commenced, involving your intrepid writer, his wife, and two sisters. We studied the logistics of an international trip with an advanced octogenarian. The AAA travel folks in the South Attleboro office were fabulously effective. Domestic air travel to gather in Boston, then international to eventually land in Sicily, and a large rented van to accommodate us on our way to the final destination.

Finally, one day in October, the plan was put into effect. One sister flew directly to Providence. The other, to Texas to join Aunt Grace and to bring her to Boston. Finally, all gathered in Attleboro, we had a family dinner at the Heritage Tap in Pawtucket, a family-friendly place if ever there was one.  Next day, how to better enjoy the local cuisine than lunch at Tex Barry’s. You locals know what that means.

Then, finally, the limo ride to Terminal E at Logan Airport. Aunt Grace with her crisp, brand new passport, having never before exited the country of her birth, was ready to go.

The flight to Rome was long, but the wine and dinner service were decent and we managed to sleep a bit. At Rome’s Fiumicino Airport, we awaited our transfer to Palermo, Sicily. The cappuccinos (cappuccini) from the airport coffee bar were excellent, a prognostication of the wonderful gustatory delights to come.

After a relatively short flight, we arrived at Palermo and secured our Hertz rental van, an eleven passenger behemoth adequate for the five of us and our considerable luggage.

The first night was spent in Palermo, on the bay, in a lovely hotel with beautiful grounds and a wonderful restaurant.  To close the circle, this was the same hotel to which we had brought our parents in 1997, both since passed. It was very sentimental, but the focus was on tomorrow – the Sicilian relatives were in Agrigento, some 80 miles to the south.

Morning dawned and we checked out, only to spend nearly an hour in Palermo rush hour traffic.

But then the traffic thinned and we finally headed south, into the dry, dusty hills and mountains of central Sicily. After nearly two hours, we emerged on the southwest coast, with the Mediterranean aglow below us. This was the land of our grandparents. Arid, poor, but with a wealth of olive groves, lemon trees, irrigated vegetables, and the endless bounty of the sea.

Finally checked into our hotel, a small family-friendly, former estate, we began the phone calls and arranged meetings. Three first cousins, all octogenarians, and we met them all, with multitudinous nieces and nephews and grandkids. To see Aunt Grace embrace her kin for the first time was beyond touching. Hugs abounded, tears flowed, and the tables were never empty (yes, Italians do insist that you eat – mangia mangia). She was welcomed into the family as if her parents had never left. Their  mountain village, almost unchanged for over 500 years, celebrated her presence.

A bucket list item is often thought of as being a personal thing. ”I want to see Mount Everest. I would like to visit Tokyo.”

But this bucket list trip was different. The five of us were delighted to meet the first cousins and numerous nieces, nephews, and grandkids. There were perhaps fifty people touched by this one event. That’s the way to do a bucket list trip.

The other trip, some three months later, to ski the Italian Alps for the first time, was personal and selfish, not worth recounting here. But that it was to Italy, with the scenery and the food (the food!), made it fabulous.

No, the adventures of Aunt Grace, on the eve of her 90th birthday, on her first trip ever out of the country, to see close relatives she had never met… that’s what made this  bucket list trip magical. Most probably, never to be matched.

But always remembered.