Reunion in Troina

​In the HBO series “White Lotus” an older man and his son try to contact their Sicilian relatives.  It does not go well.  They are chased away by an old woman with a broom.
Perhaps if he had contacted them before dropping in it could have gone better.  He might have been presented at his hotel with a book on the family genealogy put together just for his visit.  Perhaps he might have even been invited to meet the town mayor, where he would also meet thirty or so of his relatives and been given a presentation on the town and his family origins.  Perhaps he could have been invited to visit the greatest bakery on the planet, owned and operated by some more of his relatives.  They might have even invited him to their houses.  I know that all of this is possible because it all happened to me….
Of course, there is more to how this came about which I will not bother you with.  Bottom line is I visited my grandparents home town of Troina along with my wife, two sisters, brother, son, granddaughter, and another eight relatives (17 of us all told), and, yes, all I described above happened.  Why blog about it here?  Well, Troina was the first stop on a four-week trek that took us to wineries in Sicily, Piedmont, Tuscany (Montalcino) and Umbria (Montefalco), along with a lot of sight-seeing.  So, for the immediate future, I will be posting stories of our great Italian adventure.
Troina is a small (population 7,000) town at the top of a mountain.  In fact, it is the highest town in Sicily.  When the Normans ruled Sicily, it was their capital.  A great battle was fought there in World War II.  Oh, and there is a dam in their area that supplies around 90% of the fresh water for the island – and it will be dry before the end of November.

​Naturally, I took a lot of pictures.  Here is Troina, starting with the town as seen from the top and from our hotel:

​Narrow streets:

​Oh, the bakery.  Turns out one of my distant cousins owns and operates an absolutely fantastic bakery in Troina.  Treated us to the best pizza possible and the absolutely perfect cannoli.  Great cookies as well.  Pictures follow:

​There’s a story around the hotel we stayed in, but I will leave you to look it up yourself.  It was nice, with a big, largely unused dining room: