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SD Downtown News story about our guided tour
San Diego Union story about Little Italy Tours
SICILIAN RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL IN LITTLE ITALY-SAN DIEGO Click here to see the video
A Little Bit About Me...
Hit the Road by E'Louise
Ondash--COAST NEWS
Anthony Davi has come to know and love two Italys and Sicilys – the European
peninsula and island of his ancestors, and the Italy and Sicily that exist in time and memory in San Diego.
“For
many decades, the Little Italy area was the bedroom community of Genovese and Sicilian fishermen and their families,”
explained Davi, an Encinitas resident who has conducted walking tours of the ethnic neighborhood since 1997.
“I’ve
also been to Italy and Sicily and was struck by the similarity of the terrain and the climate to San Diego. The idea
of a tour began to germinate during that trip.” “That trip” was a 1987 journey to Sorrento (in southern
Italy on the Bay of Naples), the birthplace of Davi’s maternal grandmother, then a “clockwise” tour of the
island of Sicily beginning in Palermo. “My other three grandparents all hail from Monte Pellegrino and Enna in Sicily,”
Davi said. Other stops in Sicily included Cefalu, Messina, Taormina, Catania, Mount Etna, Siracusa, Agrigento, Trapani and
Erici.
The trip was not without its adventures and misadventures, which actually began even before Davi boarded
the plane to Rome. Because he needed his passport quickly, Davi had to appear in person at the passport office in Los Angeles.
A bit frazzled, he signed his passport in haste. Because it wasn’t his usual signature, officials at the local bank
in Messina wouldn’t accept it on a withdrawal form. While discussions ensued and accusations of forgery flew, Davi’s
tour bus left without him. “I had to walk many miles to catch up with the group,” he said. “They thought
I had been kidnapped.”
Then there was that accusation of theft at a Palermo hotel. “I had forgotten
to bring a transformer for my hair dryer, so I borrowed a hair dryer from the front desk,” he related. “The next
morning, I overslept, awoke in a panic, quickly dressed, packed my bags and flew down the stairs to make sure I didn’t
miss the bus again. We heard the front desk manager yelling ‘Stop thief! Stop thief!’ Then the hotel manager
ran out of his residence with his pants half on, trying to find out what all the commotion was about. The culprit
was me. I had forgotten to return the hair dryer to the front desk.”
Other than these encounters, the Italians
and Sicilians were very friendly, Davi said. “The Italians really do appreciate it when you try to engage them in their
own language. And more than ever, many Italians do speak English.” Conversations with Italians and Sicilians taught
Davi much about the cultural differences between this country and theirs. “I met a retired barber in Agrigento
who had visited a cousin in Milwaukee – his first trip to America. He was surprised that Americans everywhere asked
him, ‘How are you doing today?’ He couldn’t believe that total strangers were asking how he was doing.
But then, he soon found himself smiling back. ‘In Italy, we are not used to people smiling at us for no reason,’
he told me.” That same man quizzed Davi on another topic. “‘What’s with all the cereal?’
he asked me. At first, I couldn’t figure out what he meant. To this day, cold breakfast cereal is virtually unknown
in Italy. He remarked that he found it simply unbelievable how many boxes of cereal there were on the shelves in a typical American supermarket. ‘How
much cereal do Americans need?’ he asked me.”
Davi was searching for some answers himself. “For
centuries, Italians were thought to be experts at carpe diem – a Latin phrase which means ‘seize the moment.’
I looked for the secret of this philosophy in every face I encountered during my trip to Italy and with those I cross paths
with in Little Italy. According to my good friend Alessia Giovannini from Rome, the only people who keep this mentality alive
are those from Napoli (Naples). They refuse to accept this new fast-paced lifestyle and prefer to live with nothing now
and enjoy deeply any moment instead of sacrificing their passion now for something that someday maybe will come.” Davi
said he believes, however, that the spirit of carpe diem still exists today in San Diego’s Little Italy. Elderly Italian women
have emerged from their homes and presented flowers to the women in the tour group. Aspiring tenors have given impromptu,
a cappella performances during some of his tours. And occasionally, at the tour’s conclusion, “we all take a glass
of merlot together and make a simple toast and count our blessings to be able to savor another beautiful day in sunny
San Diego. Life is good.”
Today, Little Italy is experiencing a rebirth. It’s happening “in
the manner in which the ancient Greeks and Romans fashioned their cities – new and old buildings existing side by side,”
Davi said. “So many retailers have brought their talents to the community. Wonderful restaurants, specialty boutiques,
antique shops, artisans’ workshops, gourmet food manufacturers, imported Italian home furnishings and art galleries
– along with new European-style condos and town homes – they all dot the landscape of this cosmopolitan neighborhood.”
Renovations and improvements began in 1996 with the formation of the Little Italy Association, a business improvement
district made up of neighborhood businesses and property owners who worked together to revive the area, depressed since the
demise of the once-thriving tuna industry. Nearly $1 billion of public and private development and improvements have flowed
into Little Italy since.
Despite the changes, Davi still searches for “the right balance of forward
thinking and carpe diem. For Americans, living in the moment can be a challenge. We are a restless people but also forward
thinking and progressive – perhaps our greatest strength as a country and as a people. Even though Italians are losing
this sense of carpe diem, it’s in their DNA; you can deny it but never kill it. I’m always hopeful that a bit
of the old culture will wash over me and help me to live life to the fullest.”
To book a customized
group tour, call 760-736-1138 or e-mail Davi at anthony@littleitalytours.com
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