Eight People, One Guide Whose Family Arrived in 1884

Two hours through the Italian part of Greenwich Village and SoHo with a licensed New York guide, Greg Marro, whose family has been in this neighbourhood since 1884. Public tours take eight people, which is small enough that the walk is a conversation rather than a broadcast, and he sings.

Meeting point depends on the day: the steps of St. Anthony of Padua on Sullivan Street from Tuesday to Saturday, or Faicco's on Bleecker on Sundays. St. Anthony's was the first church built anywhere in the Americas for Italian Catholics, and you go inside for the Romanesque nave, the marble altar and the Corinthian columns.

The eating is short-range and old. A Brazilian cheese bread with a slice of prosciutto di Parma, and a brigadeiro, which is a reminder that Sullivan Street stopped being only Italian some time ago. Ravioli and arborio rice pudding at a pasta house that has been family-run since 1907. The smell of more than a hundred coffees and teas at an importer of the same age. At Faicco's, over a century in business, freshly made arancini, bocconcini and meatballs with enough bread to get the sauce off the plate. Then the last Italian pastry shop left in the Village, for the final sweet.

Between the stops: Father Demo Square with the bell tower above the fountain, Our Lady of Pompeii, an Italianate church from 1892 and the only Roman Catholic church in New York with Sunday Mass in four languages, English, Italian, Portuguese and Tagalog, and the Tira a Segno, the Italian-American rifle club that has been on MacDougal since the 1880s and admits almost nobody.

The samples are bites rather than a meal, and they change. Each walk covers no more than a mile. Guided in English, Italian or Spanish. No alcohol is served or permitted, and smoking is not allowed on the walk. Tell the guide about allergies before you start. Public departures need two people to run, though solo bookings are welcome and will be rescheduled if the numbers are not there.