Today dad and I were picked up from our hotel by Mirella (my cousin) And her husband Eugenio. We then picked up Paolo and went to Grado. This is the place where I cut my foot open on a broken bottle whilst at the beach - this happened in 1968! We looked around Grado for a short time then we boarded a ferry for Babano, a small island retreat run by a group of Fransiscan monks. It has a beautiful church and retreat centre. The church dates back to 560ad and is qui...

Woke early this morning and got ready to leave Monfalcone. We went down and settled our account and then waited for Paolo to pick us up. We stopped in at Gian Luca's coffee shop to wish him a happy birthday - he is 40 today. We had a coffee and then said goodbye to Jim and Patrizia. We went to Zia's place to say goodbye and then hit the road to Aquilea, our first stop for today. We are on the road to Fossalta di Porteguera. We stopped at Aquelia at Giuseppe and ...

Today Zio Pino picked us up from the hotel and we went back to the house. We all jumped into two cars and went for a drive to Carpentento, a small country town with great old farm houses and an old church complete with bell tower. We met an old friend of dad's, her name was Elide and she was lovely. We had coffee and then went to a local trattoria for lunch, which lasted stir about three hours. I had gnocchi with ragu and then a mixed barbecue grill. it was very ...

What a day we had today - it was very emotional and an exciting day for me. We left Malfalcone early and headed for Slovenia. We stopped in Opacino, the town that dad grew up in. His father manned the railway crossing- the main one between Italy and Yugoslavia. We stopped at his school and also the place where his house used to be. We stopped for a while and dad and Paolo talked about their experiences and adventures. They lived in Opacino between 1936-1941. We l...