If you know me, you know I love to:
- Travel and explore
- Eat great food (especially seafood)
- See interesting, historical, often hidden places
- Be in Italy
(Not necessarily always in that order)
That's why I'm excited to have been invited to be an escort for Milwaukee-based Travel Deliciously's 11-day trip to the Amalfi Coast in October.
There will be great food every day, plus cooking classes, trips to Capri, Caserta, Positano, Amalfi and Sorrento, guided tours to historical sites like Pompeii and Paestum, a trip up Vesuvio AND a visit to the tunnels under Naples (spelunking!).
I can’t wait to see Pompeii’s recently restored garden, see Capri for the first time and check out the tunnels under Naples.
It will be a small group tour, so it will be a “slow travel” experience, focused on culture, with knowledgeable local guides and four-star hotels. Traveling in October also means we’ll avoid the summer high season crowds.
And just as the summer weather starts to fade in Milwaukee, we'll be landing in the land of sunshine, lemons and the sea.
During the late 19th and early 20th century it's estimated that more than 4 million people emigrated from Naples and its region of Campania to the United States. One of my great-grandfathers was among them.
Maybe your people are from there, too. If so, come with me and visit one of our ancestral homelands as part of this incredible tour.
But you don’t have to have any Italian ancestors to savor this culinary and cultural tour with a bit of exploration in it, too.
Travel Deliciously says this trip is ideal for singles and couples aged 40 and above who value comfort, culture, and connection over crowds. If you’ve waited for the right time to experience southern Italy the authentic way…this is it.
I haven’t been back to Naples in 20 years – which is why I look relatively young in the photos here – so I’m excited for this return to one of my Italian ancestral areas and I hope you’ll come along, too.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press. A fifth collects Urban Spelunking articles about breweries and maltsters.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has been heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
