Coming to America... The Route

The above maps show the probable route the Parisi and Albertini families took to come to America. The top one shows (in red) the entire journey from Premione to Portland, while the bottom one is a close up of a segment of the trip: from Trento to Le Havre.
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From Premione to Trento

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Premione is very close to Trento, the travel distance 37.1km as per Google maps. They would first have traveled down to Stenico, the main, or at least biggest, village/town in their valley. My cousins Ed and Pam said it is about a 30 minute walk from Premione to Stenico. I assume from Stenico that they took a carriage or some kind of public transportation (horse-drawn). It would have been possible to walk from Stenico to Trento given a couple of days, but with two pregnant women, a small boy and luggage, this would have been impractical.

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Trento to Le Havre, France by train

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In the 1880's, Trento became a major railroad center, with new or improved tracks. I'm not sure which, but it was a significant improvement to cause Trento's rail business to boom. Not only did Northern Italians use Trento as a "jumping off" spot for their immigration, but nearby Austrians, Yugoslavians, Romanians and others did too.

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I've shown my guess as to the probable route above, using the current EuroRail system. I am assuming that they haven't changed the lines very much. I also am assuming they went through Switzerland as that is a more direct route than to cross through the top of Italy to France and then go up to Le Havre (a longer, more convoluted route, but also possible).

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Le Havre, known as "Le Porte Ocean", was the French port for Transatlantic liners. It is about 1300 km from Trento -- about 12 hours driving, and probably 2 days by train back then. All told, if there wasn't a problem or delay, it took them about 3 days to get to Le Havre, plus a few days to wait before the ship sailed.

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Le Havre to New York City by liner (Le Bretagne)

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The liner took 5-7 days to sail from Le Havre to New York. In the previous post, I talked a little about the conditions and their accommodations on shipboard. So far, we have say 5 days to Le Havre, and 7 on the ocean for a total of 12 days.

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By the way, they arrived the year before Ellis Island was opened, so they did not pass through that famous immigration station.

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New York to Portland by train

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The Parisi and Albertini families immigrated during the Golden Age of Railroad, when there were trains going and coming all over the United States and it was the premier way to travel. Even so, the travelling was not easy, nor short.

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Using today's Amtrak, you would travel from New York City to Pittsburgh to Chicago and finally on to Portland, OR. The entire trip would take you 64 hrs and 10 minutes! I am sure our group did go through Chicago as that was a major railway hub at the time, but their stops in between NYC, Chicago and Portland are less exact.

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They probably did not buy first class tickets, with its sleeper beds and Pullman cars. They probably bought had class tickets, both in the US and to Le Havre, which means that they sat in their seats the whole time. There was a dining car they could have bought meals, and walking up and down the aisles was the only moving about one did. If they were lucky, there were empty seats and they could lay down to sleep. Otherwise, they just sat in their seats as the miles ticked by and their destination grew closer. I cannot imagine this was easy on the pregnant women or on Tony, as even the best 6-year-old finds it difficult to sit still.

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I calculate that they were on trains for over 100 hours of their journey! I estimate that the total journey, with no delays, difficulties and getting right off one form of transportation and right on another, was 15 days.