The gap this fills
You have the research. You know the town, the street, the archive holding the record of your great-grandmother's birth. And now you have to work out how to actually get there.

That is harder than it sounds. Archives keep unpublished hours and require written requests weeks in advance. Jewish communities do not open their buildings to walk-ins. The cemetery in your family's town may be locked, with the key held by someone who has to be found and asked. None of this appears on a booking site.

La Mappa does that work for you and hands you the result: a complete itinerary, with the doors already opened, that you book and travel on your own.
Who this is for
  • We listen
    Families who want the depth of a researched heritage journey but prefer to travel independently choosing their own hotels, setting their own pace, without a guide accompanying them.
  • We search
    Often families who travel to Italy regularly and know the country. Often those with older children or teenagers, where a fixed guided schedule would be more constraint than help. Sometimes a couple travelling quietly, who would rather not have a third person present at a grave.
  • We walk together
    If you want the arrangements made and executed for you: drivers, accommodation, someone with you throughout — that is Il Viaggio.

What you receive

  • A designed itinerary document, delivered as a PDF
    Day by day, with your family's places at the centre of it: which town on which day, what to see there, what it meant to your family, and what the records say happened on that spot.
  • Archive and community access, arranged
    We write the requests, obtain the permissions, and confirm the appointments. Where your family's records exist, we arrange for you to see the originals with a named contact, a confirmed date and time, and instructions on where to present yourself. Standing agreements with the Jewish communities of Rome, Florence, and Venice, and working relationships with state and municipal archives across Italy.
  • Your family's documents, travel-ready
    The key records reproduced in the document, transcribed and translated, positioned at the day and place they belong to. You arrive at the address holding the paper that names it.
  • Full logistics
    Accommodation, private transfers, drivers, restaurant reservations, timed entries, and the arrangements that require an Italian phone call rather than a booking form.
  • A curated shortlist for every city
    Hotels at two or three price points, restaurants including kosher options where they exist, with direct booking links. Selected for your route, not pulled from a list. You book them yourself.
  • Practical logistics
    Trains and driving times between cities, which stretches need a car and which do not, what to book in advance, when things close, how Sunday and August affect the plan, and what to carry with you into an archive.
  • Us, on call while you travel
    If an archive appointment falls through, a contact does not appear, or something needs an Italian phone call, you reach us and we handle it. We are not with you, but we are reachable.
How it is built
  • Weeks one to two
    Scoping. We work through the completed research with you and establish the shape of the trip: which places, how many days, what you most want to stand in front of, how you like to travel.
  • Weeks three to six
    Access requests. Archives and communities need lead time, particularly for original documents and for spaces not routinely open. This stage sets the skeleton of the itinerary, because appointment dates are fixed and everything else moves around them.
  • Weeks seven to eight

    The itinerary is written and designed. Accommodation and restaurant shortlists assembled, maps produced, documents placed.

  • Week nine
    Delivery and briefing call. You begin booking.

    Start at least four months before you intend to travel. Under three months, archival access becomes unreliable which removes most of what you are paying for.

From $7,500.
This is a planning and access fee. It covers research review, itinerary design, all access arrangements and correspondence with archives and communities, the curated shortlists, maps, the briefing call, and support while you are travelling.
It does not include the trip itself: flights, accommodation, transport, and meals are booked and paid by you directly. That is the point of the product: you keep control of the spending and the choices.
La Mappa requires completed genealogical research. If you have not yet done it, begin there.
Common questions about planning a Jewish heritage trip to Italy
  • What is the difference between this and Il Viaggio?
    La Mappa is the plan and the access. Il Viaggio is the plan, the access, and everything else executed for you: private guide throughout, drivers, accommodation booked and paid, restaurant reservations held, photography, and a bound record afterward. With La Mappa you travel independently; with Il Viaggio you arrive and walk into it.
  • Do we have to use your research?
    Not necessarily. We can work from research completed elsewhere if it is properly sourced and the places are confirmed. We review it first and say honestly whether it supports a trip. What we will not do is build an itinerary around a town that has not actually been established as your family's.
  • Will anyone meet us at the archive?
    Yes, at the appointments we arrange, a named contact is expecting you, and in the towns of origin this is often the archivist who did your research. What is not included is a guide with you for the rest of the day.
  • What if our family's town no longer has a Jewish community?
    Most do not. The buildings, the cemeteries, the ghetto streets, and the records remain, and the itinerary is built around what is actually there. Where a cemetery is locked or a building is in private hands, arranging the access is precisely the work we do.
  • How much of the trip is fixed?
    Only the appointments. Everything else is a recommendation you are free to ignore. Most families follow roughly two-thirds of the itinerary and spend the rest of the time on whatever they came across that mattered to them.
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