This picture was e-mailed to me by Nancy Addiego Davi. Nancy is sitting next to the cake. The picture was taken in 1934 in San Francisco. All of the adults in the picture were from Verbicaro. Most of the children in the picture were born in San Francisco; but some, including Nancy, were born in Verbicaro. My grandfather is in right side of the picture, and my mother is in the center. Nancy discovered my site on the web, and recognized my grandfather.

Nancy is now 92 years old.

Clicking on the picture will bring you to a much larger version. I've enhanced the larger picture to make each face as visible as possible. If your family immigrated from Verbicaro to San Francisco, you might have a relative in this picture!

The first picture is of me, my brother Joe, and my oldest nephew Joe Jr. The second picture is of the two Joe's, and my youngest nephew, Mark. I live in Los Angeles, Mark and my brother live in San Jose, and Joe Jr. lives in Lake Tahoe. We met in Atlanta for the 10 hour plane flight to Rome.

We landed in Rome, picked up our rental car, and immediately drove down to Scalea, which we used as a base for our visit to Verbicaro. Scalea is about 270 miles South of Rome’s Da Vinci Airport (Fumicino). I estimated that the drive would take about three hours. Instead, the drive took about five hours, with the last hour taking us through rugged coastal mountains. It was a rough drive, considering we really didn't sleep at all on the fight over. If you’re thinking of driving straight down to Scalea from the airport, think again. I don’t recommend it. We were awake for 36 hours straight.

Scalea is a small resort town, overlooking the Tyrenian Sea, on the western coast of Southern Italy. It has a pebble beach, an interesting medieval tower, and a ruined castle. Scalea is a good place to stay, if you're planning a visit to Verbicaro. It's also a nice resort town, and a good destination for a relaxing vacation. Unfortunately, we only used it as a base for our visit to Verbicaro. We were only in Italy for seven days, and we wanted to go to some of Italy's famous sights together.

In Scalea, We stayed at the Grand Hotel De Rose. As you can see from this picture, it has a commanding view of the beach. We we're there in May, and the hotel was not very busy. I've heard that the hotel and the town are extremely busy during the summer months. If you're planning to go there then, reserve a room well in advance, and get a written confirmation.

We arrived in Scalea from our long flight and drive at about 4:00 p.m. We we're really tired, but excited enough to shower, walk on the beach, and have a great dinner at an outdoor restaurant in downtown Scalea. We went to bed at about 9:00, and got up early the next day for our short drive up to Verbicaro.

When I was growing up, my grandfather, Giuseppe Lucia, would sometimes talk about Verbicaro. His memories were of a small backward town. For him, Verbicaro remained as he left it; and although he had the financial means, he had no desire to return. When he was growing up, he must have had a very hard life there.

My interest in Verbicaro began when my mother made two visits to the town during the 1980’s. At that time, my Grandfather’s sister was still alive and living in the old town area. After hearing my mother talk about her trips and looking at her pictures, I thought that someday it would be fun to travel there with my brother and two nephews. It remained just a thought for many years until Christmas 2001, when we finally decided that the time was right to go. In researching our trip, I found just a few pictures of Verbicaro on the Internet. On our visit, I took lots of pictures so that people who will not have the opportunity to travel there can at least get and idea of what the town is like. It turns out that many Italian-Americans have ancestors who came from Verbicaro. If you’re one of them, I hope that you enjoy the following pictures.

This is the first view of the town from the road. Verbicaro is located very near Scalea in the coastal mountains of Italy’s Calabria Region. People from this region call themselves Calabrese. The drive up to Verbicaro is beautiful. The narrow but good road winds through fantastic scenery that includes a large ruined castle along the way. As you near Verbicaro, the road provides a panoramic view of the town and surrounding countryside.

The town was much larger than I expected. It consists of a medieval-looking “Old Town” area, and a newer area with modern buildings. The old town is perched on a rocky buttress, overlooking a small valley. There’s no doubt that it was originally situated there because it was the best defensive position in the area during the middle ages. For some reason, I expected the surrounding countryside to be like California, with dry rolling hills and a few trees. Instead, the region is mountainous and very green.

My grandfather told me that he immigrated to the United States with a friend. They first traveled to Naples, then boarded a ship bound for New York. From New York they boarded a train and traveled directly to San Francisco. For us, traveling home from Verbicaro to California reaffirmed our appreciation for how hard it must have been to make the same journey in the early 1900’s. Hey, the trip was hard for us and we traveled by Mercedes Station Wagon and by 767 jet!

After we stopped to take pictures of our first view of Verbicaro, we drove straight into and out of the town, stopping to take these pictures along the way.

The picture to the left is actually a video. Click on the play button in the picture to start the video. It's about one and a half minutes long.

The video was taken by my brother as we drove into Verbicaro. Although a little shaky and not very clear, it will give you an idea of what it's like to drive into the town.

In the U.S., Fazzio is a unique name. It's normally spelled with one "Z". The agent who wrote my grandfather's name down on the immigration records probably made a spelling mistake. Anyway, it's pronounced the same way, and it really was an experience to be in a town where the name is common. The picture on the left is of my brother standing in front of a Jewelry store named "Fazio".The picture on the right is the start of our walk through Verbicaro's old town.

It was a very meaningful and moving experience, walking through the same streets that our ancestors most definitely walked. Why did they settle there? How long ago? What did they do to make a living? We can only guess. It's sad that most of us have no history about our family, and almost all of us have no interest in genealogy. Of course, I know that you have an interest. You're probably reading this because your family was from the same town!

The following pictures are in order to give you the same experience that we had walking through the town.

Based on the houses in the old town section, historians have determined that the original village of Verbicaro is medieval, dating back from somewhere in the 1400's.

Remember that all of the pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them. When you click, your browser will open the enlarged picture in a separate window. To return to this page, close the window that has the enlarged picture in it. Underlined text are links that take you to other web sites with more information on the subject.

Click Here for more pictures of Verbicaro!

Don't know if you're Italian??Click on the flag to take the test!