"Batti Il Ferro Finché è Caldo"

The Italian phrase in the headline means, quite literally, to "strike while the iron is hot." Doing just that last week, I pulled the trigger and booked passage to Italy, the land of my forebears, in September.

The plan is to fly into Milan and then travel by train to Genoa in the province of Liguria. My grandmother lived near Genoa in the village of Orero before emigrating to the United States with her family in 1912.

My grandmother -- Gemma Emilia Bricchetto (below left, seated) her sister Eva (below right, standing) her mother and brother -- arrived by ship at Ellis Island about the same time as the sinking of the Titanic.

In fact, the Brichetto familia would have been sailing across the Atlantic at the exact same time as the RMS Titanic, which left England on April 10 and sank on April 15, 1912. My grandmother's ship, the "Ancona," which departed from Genoa on or about April 9, arrived in New York on April 23, 1912, nearly 100 years ago.

Establishing a base at a hotel in Genoa, the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, I'll spend the first week exploring the Italian Rivera and the coastline east of the seaport leading to Cinque Terra (above, top).

Next, I'll travel to Turin in the province of Piedmont in the Italian Alps to visit the home of my grandfather, Carl Joseph Cargni.

Growing up in the shadow of massive, snow-clad Mt. Rosa (below, bottom) in the little village of Chialamberto, my grandfather led caravans through the Alps to France in his youth. Carl emigrated to America in November, 1904.

Perhaps not coincidentally, my grandparents -- who both hailed from the northwestern corner of Italy, a land of scenic seashores and majestic mountains -- relocated to the northwestern corner of the United States, a land of scenic seashores and majestic mountains.

My long-awaited trip to Italy will begin on September 7, flying from Eugene to San Francisco to Frankfurt, Germany, then on to Milan and arriving in Genoa on September 8. Bellissimo!