The Italy Map
Mockup · For your OK
The Italy Map
Our Italy years, pinned town by town — so anyone visiting the site can start with a place, not a pile of posts. Tap a pin in Palermo, Cefalù, Spoleto or any other town and the stories that happened there open right underneath.
Explore the map ↓ Browse stories instead
How to read this mockup: the map and pins really work. The town photos are real photos of each town — in the live version they swap for your own photos from each place.
Start with a place
Click a numbered pin on the map — or a town in the list — and that town's stories open below. The two stay in sync, exactly as they would on the live site.
Towns & stories
8 towns · 13 stories
Pin 1 · Sicily
Sicily · Family roots
Palermo
Where the Frangipani story starts.
Your grandfather Calogero was born here in 1895. Palermo is the anchor pin: the records, the cathedral, and the streets the family left — and the town every roots story returns to.
…or start with a story
Every story card carries its town, so a reader who lands from the Story Archive can jump straight back to the map. Filter by region above and this shelf follows.
Pin 1 · Palermo, Sicily
Where Calogero Began — Palermo, 1895
The birth record, the Palermo he left, and what the city still shows of that world.
Read in place →Pin 1 · Palermo, Sicily
Asking Palermo for the Records
Birth and marriage extracts from the Comune — the long, patient paper trail, told plainly.
Read in place →Pin 1 · Palermo, Sicily
First Morning at the Cathedral
Palermo Cathedral before the crowds, and the walk we took from there.
Read in place →Pin 2 · Cefalù, Sicily
The Farmhouse Search: Gratteri & the Madonie Hills
Olive groves, stone houses and honest maths — what 'restored' really meant, house after house.
Read in place →Pin 2 · Cefalù, Sicily
Cefalù at Golden Hour
The Duomo turning gold, fishing boats in, and dinner in the old town.
Read in place →Pin 3 · Rome, Lazio
Walking Rome, One Neighbourhood at a Time
The walk-first way we learned the city — and the routes we'd hand to anyone going once.
Read in place →Pin 3 · Rome, Lazio
The Walk We Keep Coming Back To
Some routes become yours. This is ours, step by step.
Read in place →Pin 4 · Orvieto, Umbria
The Duomo Stops You in Your Tracks
Arriving in Orvieto, the funicular up — and standing in front of that facade.
Read in place →Pin 5 · Spoleto, Umbria
Could We Live Here? Spoleto & the Snowbird Idea
Ninety days in, ninety days out — testing a town as a rhythm of life, not a holiday.
Read in place →Pin 5 · Spoleto, Umbria
A Town That Rewards Walking Up
Spoleto is vertical. The Rocca, the aqueduct bridge, and legs that knew about it.
Read in place →Pin 6 · Assisi, Umbria
A Quiet Morning in Assisi
Beating the crowds to the basilica — and the valley light that made it worth it.
Read in place →Pin 7 · Perugia, Umbria
Piazza IV Novembre & the Long Lunch
Perugia's great square, the fountain, and why we stopped planning afternoons there.
Read in place →Pin 8 · Gubbio, Umbria
Stone Streets, Steep Climb — Gubbio
The climb, the Palazzo dei Consoli, and the view that pays you back at the top.
Read in place →One trip, in pin order
A visitor who wants the whole arc — roots in Sicily first, then the Umbria loop — can follow the pins in this order. On the live site this becomes the “Start the journey” path through the Story Archive.
Two threads, one map
The map quietly holds both halves of the Italy story at once — where the family came from, and where you two keep going back to.
Thread 1 · Roots
Palermo → Brooklyn → Tennessee
Calogero Frangipani was born in Palermo on 7 January 1895. The Palermo pins anchor the family-history stories — and link across to the family tree, so a name there can be read in its place here.
- Palermo — birthplace, records & first family
- Brooklyn — the 1950 household: Carl, Vivian & the children
- Queens & beyond — Jackson Heights, Richmond Hill, Corona
Thread 2 · The next chapter
The slow-travel years
The Umbria and Sicily pins carry the newer stories: testing towns for 90-day snowbird stays, hunting for a small farmhouse with olive trees in the Madonie hills, and walking Rome properly — one neighbourhood at a time.
- Sicily — Cefalù & the Madonie farmhouse search
- Umbria — Spoleto, Assisi, Perugia, Gubbio, Orvieto
- Rome — walks that became rituals
Mockup notes
What you're approving
This is the layout and behaviour, not the finished wording. Give the OK on the shape of it and the live build on thomaslovesaudra.com follows this 1:1 — structure, proportions and pin order included.
✓ Map + list in sync ✓ Works on phone ✓ Dark mode included
- Your photos replace these. Every photo here is a real photo of that actual town, used only to hold the space. In the live version each pin uses your own photo from that place — the same rule as the rest of the site.
- Story titles are shaped placeholders. They're built from the threads in your own research on file — Calogero's 1895 Palermo birth, the Palermo record requests, the Cefalù / Madonie farmhouse search, the Spoleto snowbird plan, the Umbria towns — so you can judge the layout. Real titles slot in from the Story Archive at build time.
- Pins grow with the stories. A new Italy story just needs its town picked when it's published; the pin, the count and the story shelf update from that one choice. Todi and Vicopisano are ready to add the moment they have a story.
- It links both ways. Map → story, story → map, and Palermo → family tree. No dead ends for a visitor who arrives from any direction.