Pizzo a taste of “La dolce vita”

One doesn’t need a watch in Pizzo. It took me a little while to understand that. From 6am to 12am the clock on the Chiese San Gregorio Martire chimes on the quarter hour. The chiming was unique, at least to me, in that one bell chimes the hour and a second bell of a different tone chimes the quarter hour. I realized this when I counted 14 chimes at 12:30 lol.

This is a resort town at the end of high season so some things were closed or closing. But it was obvious that in season this is a busy place as shown by the bevy of open air restaurants and Gelateria.

Pizzo is known for the tartufo di Pizzo or Pizzo truffle. This is a confectionery made of gelato. A true tartufo starts with a core of chocolate gelato which is then encased in vanilla gelato after which liquid dark chocolate syrup is injected into the center of the chocolate gelato. Honestly, way too much chocolate for me so I opted for the pistachio truffle with a pistachio gelato core injected with the dark chocolate syrup. Sorry, forgot to take a picture but the visual of the chocolate syrup oozing out of the green pistachio gelato was a treat. Pizzo is so famous for its gelato that in the off season there is one gelateria for every 500 permanent residents of Pizzo (pop 15,000)

One attraction which was open was the Castle Murat. Murat was the brother in law of Napoleon who had been appointed King of Pizzo. He was a young man who was executed when France was taken back from Napoleon. I’ll not get any deeper here but you can Google for more info. Here are some pics

After visiting the castle the three of us just drifted around the town seeing the unique features of a town built into a mountainside.

The streets are basically serpentine which requires the walkways to allow folks to move about town without having to walk halfway around the world. Folks walk a lot around Pizzo and one didn’t see very many heavy Pizzan’s 😊

There were fountains scattered throughout the town we took some pictures of the Garibaldi font.

One could fill one’s hydration pack from most of the fonts but not all were potable

We stopped for lunch at one of the open air pizzerias. I couldn’t figure out the meat on mine that looked liked pulled pork but it was delicious. My first thought was “I don’t want to know “ lol but then I figured out it was smoked tuna.

After the lunch and two beers I was ready for a nap. Will went for a swim said the water was fine.

Finally that evening we went to the rooftop terrace of our B&B for the sunset.

Tomorrow is another day and our hike begins 😳