Nonna, as my dad and his siblings called her, was named Cesira Anarotoni. She's my Dad's, dad's mom. My great grandmother.

We never met.

Growing up, I didn't hear a lot of detailed family history, but the "Zisa" identity seemed pretty connected to Italy, and so, I did, too. I always knew that Grandpa's mom was from northern Italy near Asti - was this why Uncle Frank always served Asti Spumante at family holidays? - and his dad was from Sicily. Spending time in Italy exploring the country while we're living so nearby in Munich is important to me. So over Christmas, Dave and I took our Grey Goose on a three week road trip to do just that (but not all vacation... lots of remote working!). We spent four lovely days in Cesira's hometown area, Piedmont, including two days in Asti. This post covers Asti only; subsequent posts (hopefully) will cover the rest of Piedmont and the rest of our road trip.

First, Asti is much bigger than I expected. I thought it would be a small, quaint little village. Turns out, there's a lot going on. There were chain stores, tattoo parlors, a mid-week farmer's market. And more cafes and coffee shops than I could count. Parts of it were a little gritty - that's the new, modern Asti. But there's also "old town" which is the picturesque Italian-scape you probably have in mind - narrow roads, tiny Italian cars squeezing down through-ways two inches wider than the vehicle, cobble stone streets.

Asti is not on the tourist radar, so it has retained much of its character despite the boom of growing numbers of travelers to Italy. This means there was very little English, local prices (affordable!!!), and an authentic day-to-day vibe. While we couldn't read the menu without the help of Google Translate, we had The. Best. Meal our first night when we dropped into whatever restaurant was open, which happened to be Ristorante Pizzeria Monna Laura. Nothing fancy, but a killer brick-oven pizza, bottle of local wine, salad, and bowl of ribollita later, our bill was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 euro. Little local gems like this are our favorite.

Also, we had lunch at this locals' cafe. Totally memorable.

The town is also filled with churches and old towers. Apparently, at one point in history, Asti was a prominent city, having built wealth and strategic importance as a central point of the trading route heading north from the Ligurian ports. We visited many of these churches on our self-made walking tour around town. They're beautiful, and majestic. A symbol of Asti's past.

The most fun part of visiting Asti was going to the town archives in search of... well, anything about Cesira. No one could give me information about her while I was standing there, helplessly trying to communicate through an app on my phone and feeling like a total San Francisco tool. After 15 minutes, and finding someone who could communicate basics in English, I'm pretty sure I got my point across. The archives employee asked me to write my request down, and said she'd get back to me, but not in a hurry. I'm pretty sure she said 3-6 months. Italian time, ha.

We planned a short trip, in-and-out. But Asti captured us with its authenticity and perhaps the subconscious feeling of family, so we extended our stay. After a few days walking around, thinking about my Dad and all my Zisa relatives, we hit the road and headed to small hill towns of Piedmont...stay tuned.