My brother Leo and I traveled all the way to Vittorio Veneto, Italy, this summer for that opportunity. That ancient town, some 40 or so miles north of Venice, is where the Italian army finally licked the Austro-Hungarians just days before the November 11, 1918, armistice that ended WWI. It's where Hemingway served in the Red Cross and gathered the material for "A Farewell to Arms." It's where in 1996 Chris O'Donnell played the young Hem and Sandra Bullock his nurse/lover in the film "In Love and War." It's also our family's hometown.

Readers of this column may recall the two installments devoted last year to "Digging for..." and "Discovering..." my Italian roots. In fact, reader response to those two pieces was largely responsible for the success Leo and I enjoyed during the last week of July. Relatives I hardly know reacted with information that led us down a meandering but productive path. Steve Massa, a distant cousin and student at Philly's Chestnut Hill College, deserves special kudos, primarily for putting us in touch with one Giorgio Marinello, a denizen of Carpesica, a hamlet-neighbor of Vittorio Veneto. The 59-year-old tech-manual writer and amateur historian corrected our misconception about the identity of our family's hometown, which we were led to believe was nearby Conegliano. Before we even left the U.S. he provided digital photos of our grandfather's birth record, and by the time he met us at the B&B where we stayed, we were presented with a complete genealogy... in duplicate.

Speaking of that Bed & Breakfast, my Irish-American wife Joanne offers me her most skeptical smirk when I claim that the sub-Alpine country we traversed is the equal of anything the Emerald Isle can offer. Still, I swear it's true. The valleys are devoted to vineyards, Prosecco being the grape of choice. By law buildings must be built along strictly traditional lines with distinctive orange-tile roofs. The double backdrop consists of low, Appalachian-like hills, dwarfed by the sub-Alpine Dolomite Mountains. In some aspects it echoed, but in others it surpassed, the war-torn world Hemingway described in his first great novel. In "A Farewell..." he wrote,

"The plain was rich with crops; there were many orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare. There was fighting in the mountains and at night we could see the flashes of artillery.... To the north we could look across the valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another mountain on this side of the river. There was fighting for that mountain, too, but it was not successful, and in the fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain. The vineyards were thin and bare-branched too and all the country wet and brown and dead with autumn."

Giorgio told us that many of the mountains, denuded down the decades by war and foraging for firewood and the pasturing of cattle, were reforested during the last 30 years or so. Since "Castagnera" is a derivative of "chestnut tree," I found this cheering. Our indefatigable guide showed us the church where our grandparents wed and the street where the family most likely lived. We also walked the ancient alleys of Vittorio Veneto where the '96 Hemingway film made the 13th-century arched buildings into the setting for the literary lion's first love affair.

We toured the cathedral and the war museum. We lunched on polenta and sausages on a restaurant/patio overlooking some of the same staggering scenery that stunned us at every turn of the road. Were it up to our wiry guide, we might still be touring the Compania, as this swath of Northeast Italy is known. Unfortunately, around five o'clock, following eight hours on the trail of my heritage, I flopped onto a grassy knoll and declined to continue.

Where does the trail lead from here? The Italians -- a generous folk at all times -- make dual citizenship relatively easy to obtain. Again thanks to student Steve Massa, Grandpappy Castagnera's naturalization certificate has come my way. It shows that my dad was born before the Pater Familias renounced his Italian citizenship. With the genealogy worked up by Giorgio Marinello, this may be all that's needed to eventually apply for a European Union passport. With a son newly married and residing in Germany, an EU passport might come in handy.

On the other hand, this episode may be merely the end of a sentimental chapter in the 750-word/week autobiography of yours truly.

Jim Castagnera is an attorney and a journalist who lives and writes in Havertown.