Welcome to my travel website!

I was born in the U.S., but my heart belongs to Italy. I have developed a blog, LaCiociaraItaliana.com, to talk about all things Italian, especially from the Lazio region, including travel, art, food, history, and life in general.

The links on this travel website are what are known as affiliate links. I partner with and publish offers from legitimate travel company websites such as Viator.com and Hotels.com.  This insures that you get the best travel deals available. You decide how you want your trip to be. I will never place a link to a website unless I’ve checked it out first.  If you have any questions about anything, you can always email me at laciociaraitaliana@gmail.com.

My love affair with Italy began when I was a child. When my parents decided to pack everything up and move back there, we moved to Milano, where I attended first grade, and even though I was so young, it has left quite an impression on me. In fact, to this day I have been trying to find my way back to a life there, but having a family makes it a not so easy thing! Of course, I go to Italy every chance I get, having my father’s side of the family there, mostly in the Lazio region which is in central Italy and includes Italy’s capital, Rome.

So you might be asking why I chose the name “La Ciociara” for my blog. “Ciociara”, pronounced “cho-cha-ra”, comes from the name given to the people who come from central Italy, particularly in the province of Frosinone, which is where my father comes from. “Cioce” are the type of sandals that were worn by sheep and cattle herders of this region, hence the name “ciociara”.

It is also the name of the movie based on the novel by Alberto Moravia starring the ever so beautiful Sophia Loren and French actor Jean Paul Belmondo, and directed by Vittorio de Sica, which is about a widow and her daughter who flee Rome during WWII. (The English version of this movie is called “Two Women”.) Unfortunately it has come to my attention that another version of this movie has been made recently which has caused much controversy.

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By the way, here’s a bit of useless information – my name, Marcia, means belonging to the Roman god Mars. In Italian, it is actually spelled Marzia, but my name is in Portuguese.