Pictures from Italy-- Silvano d'Orba the second visit

When we were leaving Silvano on March 15th, we swung by the City Hall to leave a thank you gift for Edilio, the man who had been helping Glen with the cemeteries...and somehow that turned into us meeting with the mayor, Giuseppe "Pino" Coco. He wanted to know if we could come back on Sunday. We said we could. So, after 2 days in Turin, we headed back to Silvano.

The mayor gifted us an original drawing of the barge in the Orba river. The Perasso family were the only ones allowed to operate the barge, so supposedly the people on the barge were Perassos. He also had some things to show us involving the Perasso family in Silvano. He had the Vice Mayor, Chiara Boarini, come along. She spoke some English and was so nice.

this is the drawing of the barge the Mayor gave us-it's currently at Dad Perazzo's house

We all toured the local grappe distillery - we surprised them when we declined tasting the product

Mayor Pino Coco, Beth, Glen, Hannah, Vice Mayor Chiara Boarini

After the distillery, we were taken to a restaurant and hotel, Albergo Ristorante Italia di Perasso Alberto. We got to meet Alberto (the owner), his daughter, Valentina (who ran the business it seems), and Valentina's son, Eduardo (who works there and spoke excellent English). Glen had his family history charts, but Alberto only knew a bit about his ancestors, so we couldn't make a connection. 

Glen, Alberto Perasso, Hannah, and Beth

Hannah, Glen, Valentina, Mayor Coco, and Alberto

After checking in, we had dinner in their restaurant. It was quite a popular place and was full of diners. I really enjoyed their food. 

their version of a vegetarian pizza included fresh greens on top of the eggplant, zucchini, and roasted bell peppers

Hannah's dessert that night

Puppetry is something Silvano d'Orba is known for. 

this cute puppet is in the mayor's office

Hannah in front of a sign on the street

Hannah putting on a little puppet show for us the next night

the castle and la Chiesa di San Pietro (St. Peter's Church)

downtown Silvano d'Orba 

spring was evident with flowering trees and bushes everywhere

the back of the bell tower of la Chiesa di San Sebastiano

La Chiesa di San Sebastiano Martire

we were surprised to find a street market in Silvano on Monday morning 18 March

We spent some time on Monday in Ovada and found this fun bench (💓vada)

wandering down random streets in Ovada

another random street in Ovada

and stopping for gelato kind of goes without saying

we liked the message painted on this shop window

this grocery and pet store in Ovada had an awesome mural

just too cute for words!

We drove through the countryside for a while - I think we were north of Silvano:

We had to make a padded box for it to get the Perasso barge drawing safely home on the airplane

The Mayor had us go back to see him on Monday when he had not only the vice Mayor Chiara Boarini with him, but a man, Pierre, who spoke more English than they did. They took us to the Galleria in the City Hall building which has pictures of the history of Silvano d'Orba. Then we walked to the area down Via Nave where the Perasso family first owned property when they came to Silvano.

San Pancrazio is the Patron Saint of Silvano--he died at the age of 13 on May 12th 303 AD. This photo is of the San Pancrazio procession in 1953.

a photo of a street in 1900

this is the house that was the first property owned by Perassos

this was another building on the same property and was owned by Perassos

We bumped into Signora Perasso and the mayor had her join us. We couldn't figure out how she was related to us, but she gave her father-in-law's info to Glen so he could work on making a connection

It was a most wonderful trip. Everything seemed to be a visual feast and I wanted to take pictures of all of it--it may seem like I did, but there are still plenty of photos I didn't post--plus Glen and Hannah have tons. Glen took a photo a every meal he had. That and the fact that he bought magnets every place he could was his way of documenting the trip.

Venice and Pompeii were fabulous, but being in Silvano was better than the cherry on top. I'm so glad we went and that we went twice to Silvano.