sara particco

Our trip to Monte Cassino was fantastic thanks to our great tour guides Sara and Enzo.

We booked our guided tour with Sara and Enzo months before we embarked on our trip to Italy, which was especially planned to follow some of the journeys of the 28th Maori Battalion through Italy during WWII.  S&E asked what we wanted to see and put a plan together accordingly, with extras suggestions as well.

We met with Sara and Enzo bang on time at our Hotel in Monte Cassino as planned, with a quick coffee and chat before we set off for the day in their car.  We started off with the Commonwealth Cemetery, Enzo showing us exactly where the New Zealanders were buried (at the front right hand corner), where we found a local Maori soldier from my home town to which we paid homage to.  Beautiful graves arranged and mantained.  Enzo's knowledge he shared with us was outstanding, pointing out where the NZ Commander Kippenberger was when he was observing and injured on Mount Trocchio.  We spent a bit of time at the Cemetery being just over an hour as we wanted to look over the entire area and  - Sara and Enzo were very patient.  Next stop we went to the German Cemetery and were very impressed with how the graves were arranged and maintained with Sara and Enzo always filling us in with the history of the fighting of the battles in the hills above us with particulary the Polish Corp that fought with so much determination and bravery.  Next stop was a quick look at a small castle half way of the mountain before heading up to the Abbey itself.

Sara and Enzo suggested we do a tour of the Abbey with one of Abbey's guides - which was well worth it as we got to go to areas that the public are not allowed to enter. The Abbey and Museum were amazing and not to be missed.

Our tour was finished off with a visit to the Polish cemetery with over a thousand warriors  buried there.  I can't speakly highly enough of Sara and Enzo, great hosts, great guides, the research and planning they had done for our trip was superb - lovely nice people who were a wealth of information.  Arohanui xx Hemi and Leigh