Anyone heard of Carinola?

[collector]

My husband's family on his mother's side is from this little town just north of Naples? We're thinking about doing a cruise in 2010, and would like to know if it's feasible to rent a car and take a little trip to find this town. Has anyone done this sort of thing on their own or would it be better to hire a tour guide to take us? It would be fun to find some long lost cousins.

[GSPLover]

It is about an hours drive from Naples. Most is on the autostrada (toll road). You might check this site out as it has telephone number lookup.

http://en.comuni-italiani.it/061/017/

[CoralReef]

Sounds like fun! If you want to meet local relatives without a guide, here's a tip from the book "The Ridiculous Race".

 

One of the narrators (Steve Hely), an English-only speaker, showed up in a small town in Italy, with a sign in Italian that said, "My grandparents were [names], and I'm here to buy a drink for anyone who is related to me." He soon had more cousins than he could shake a stick at, and ended up having an amazing time. (Plus he met some actual relatives!)

 

I thought that was a great way to make friends.