The Road to San Donato: Fathers, Sons, and Cycling Across Italy
Robert Cocuzzo
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
The Road to San Donato is an adventurous travel memoir of an American father and son tracing their Italian heritage by bicycle. With only the bare essentials on their backs, author Robert Cocuzzo and his sixty-four-year-old father, Stephen, embark on a torturous 425-mile ride from Florence, Italy, to San Donato Val di Comino, an ancient village hidden in the Apennine mountains from which their family emigrated a hundred years earlier. After getting lost, beaten down, and very nearly stranded, when they finally reach the village the Cocuzzos discover so much more than their own family story. For many Jews in the 1940s, the road to San Donato was one of exile; during World War II, dozens were interned in the village. When the Nazis came to ship them off to death camps, however, many of the villagers went to heroic lengths to save their lives. Walking and pedaling through this history, Robert Cocuzzo is determined to learn the role his family played at the time. The Road to San Donato is a story of fathers and sons, discovering lost "cousins," valorous history, and the challenge and exhilaration of traveling by bicycle.
Product Details
Price
$24.95
$23.20
Publisher
Mountaineers Books
Publish Date
September 01, 2019
Pages
224
Dimensions
5.9 X 8.7 X 1.1 inches | 0.95 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9781680512441
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About the Author
Robert Cocuzzo is an editor, journalist, and author of the critically acclaimed Tracking the Wild Coomba: The Life of Legendary Skier Doug Coombs. He is also the editor of Nantucket Magazine and has written for Outside, Town & Country, Departures, Luxury, and Boston Common. Rob and his wife, Jenny, live with their daughter in Arlington, Massachusetts. Visit him online at RobertCocuzzo.com.
Reviews
Robert Cocuzzo's The Road To San Donato is an absolute delight. Poignant, uplifting, powerful--a father and son journey that's part adventure, part soulful family memoir. Had me reading late into the night, not wanting it to end. Beautifully written from the first page.--Ben Mezrich, New York Times bestselling author of Bitcoin Billionaires
A compelling ride-along adventure to the heart of home, family, and fatherhood.--Charles Graeber, New York Times bestselling author of The Breakthrough
This is a wonderful book, and an inspiration - I'd love to take a bike trip like this in time and space with my children.--Paul Theroux, Best selling novelist and travel writer
The book, lovingly told and tightly paced, charts [the author and his father's] journey, the mishaps, strains, triumphs, giving sense of a place, a history, a series of fathers, and the spinning wheel of time that binds them together.--Nina MacLaughlin "The Boston Globe"
A delightful Italian travel adventure, sure to appeal to cyclists--and an ideal choice for father-son book clubs.--Brenda Barrera "Booklist"
This adventure memoir tells the story of a 425-mile cycling adventure the author and his 64-year-old father embarked on through Italy in search of their family's history.-- "Bicycling Recommended Gift"
A powerful meditation on the complexities of war, refugee and immigrant experiences, and the meaning of personal sacrifice.... The Road to San Donato is a moving multigenerational American immigrant story about returning home in search of history and making peace with the past to forge a new future.--Wendy Hinman "Foreword Reviews"
An adventurous and deftly written and inherently fascinating kind of travel memoir as an American father and son painstakingly traced their Italian heritage and family history by bicycle.-- "Midwest Book Review"
The Road to San Donato: Fathers, Sons, and Cycling Across Italy...uses cycling to rediscover family roots.--Noah Robertson "The Christian Science Monitor"
A compelling ride-along adventure to the heart of home, family, and fatherhood.--Charles Graeber, New York Times bestselling author of The Breakthrough
This is a wonderful book, and an inspiration - I'd love to take a bike trip like this in time and space with my children.--Paul Theroux, Best selling novelist and travel writer
The book, lovingly told and tightly paced, charts [the author and his father's] journey, the mishaps, strains, triumphs, giving sense of a place, a history, a series of fathers, and the spinning wheel of time that binds them together.--Nina MacLaughlin "The Boston Globe"
A delightful Italian travel adventure, sure to appeal to cyclists--and an ideal choice for father-son book clubs.--Brenda Barrera "Booklist"
This adventure memoir tells the story of a 425-mile cycling adventure the author and his 64-year-old father embarked on through Italy in search of their family's history.-- "Bicycling Recommended Gift"
A powerful meditation on the complexities of war, refugee and immigrant experiences, and the meaning of personal sacrifice.... The Road to San Donato is a moving multigenerational American immigrant story about returning home in search of history and making peace with the past to forge a new future.--Wendy Hinman "Foreword Reviews"
An adventurous and deftly written and inherently fascinating kind of travel memoir as an American father and son painstakingly traced their Italian heritage and family history by bicycle.-- "Midwest Book Review"
The Road to San Donato: Fathers, Sons, and Cycling Across Italy...uses cycling to rediscover family roots.--Noah Robertson "The Christian Science Monitor"
