When I was nine years old, my parents took my sister and I to England, Wales and Ireland. We visited our ancestor’s hometown in Ireland and I met loads of people with the same last name as mine. I loved it and I definitely remember it.
I love travelling. I love seeing the world. I think the value of experiencing a culture via travel is immeasurable, for both adults and children.
My father in law is from a small town called Santa Ninfa in south western Sicily. He immigrated to Canada when he was 18 years old. This August my children along with myself, my husband and a whole whack of other relatives, including Nonno Joe, are going back to Nonno Joe’s hometown! We will get a chance to see where their Nonno Joe and Uncle Sam grew up, with them!
WE ARE GOING ON A BIG FAT FAMILY TRIP TO SICILY AND WE ARE SOOOO EXCITED!
My sister in law got the ball rolling and convinced my father in law to go. Once the word got out that the patriarch (Joe Ferreri) was going, how could we refuse the chance to show our children their Sicilian heritage! My sister in law, Cathy, is an avid traveller and has used Merit Travel for years. Merit has grown to become the largest independent specialty travel company in Canada. More than 450 Merit travel professionals are located in offices across the country. The Merit staff provide advice and services to more than 350,000 travellers every year. Our travel agent, Wendy, works out of the Peterborough ON location on Chemong Rd, but we are grateful for a convenient toll free number to connect with any of the offices across the country at any time.
A great travel agency with easy access to reach them makes a big difference, especially when we’re travelling with such a large group and with kids.
Getting to Santa Ninfa will be a trip in itself! We fly to Rome then take a connecting flight to Palermo. Once in Palermo we have rented a car to drive to Santa Ninfa. There’s a lot of family waiting for us with wooden spoons up, ready to feed us;) My daughter has been working really hard at learning Italian! Her Nonno Joe has even joined in on the Rosetta Stone lessons 😉 Watch this little video, Nonno Joe is amazed by his grandaughter learning Italian on the computer box;) (watch time 1:25)
I had to hit record…Rosetta Stone vs Nonno Joe??
Posted by Michelle Ferreri on Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Our kids are 12, 9 and 6. They are super excited to visit the hometown of their Grandfather, and see all of his stories come to life. My one son, Marcello is excited that everyone will be able to pronounce his name right! (it’s pronounced Marchello not Marsello).
The kids have been doing their research, literally. They are learning about the history of Sicily and mapping out all of the places they want to visit, including Mount Etna.
A poster my kids made in prep for our upcoming trip to Sicily
Over the coming weeks you may see lots of posts of my Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter as we countdown the days and get ready for our big fat family trip to Sicily. Thanks again to Merit Travel for making the process smoother. We will be posting lots of pictures and videos while we are there. Also, of course, if you’ve been to Sicily and have any suggestions of sites we should check out, please let us know!!
To learn more about Merit Travel you can check out their website HERE, there Facebook link is HERE and their Twitter page link is HERE.
CIAO BELLA!
MF
This post is sponsored by Merit Travel but the opinions are my own.
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