4 March 2024 – Pizzo & Tropea
Miles driven today = 48
Total Miles to date = 2,027
Compare this photo with the one I took from a similar position yesterday and you can see just how much rain we had this morning. It absolutely battered down for the best part of 6 hours so we hunkered down until it stopped and finally got ourselves on the road at about 10:30.
The A3 Autostrada is toll-free in this neck of the woods and follows the coastline fairly closely so we jumped on that for about 40 kilometres to Pizzo. Supplies were running low. We generally head for the nearest Lidl a) because they are amongst the cheapest and b) because their layout is always the same so we can generally find things fairly easily without having to translate shop signs. But there is no Lidl round here so we popped into Euro Spin as an alternative. When I have seen roadside advertisements for these places I assumed Euro Spin was some sort of lottery, but we were actually quite impressed both with prices and availability so we will definitely use them again if any other Lidl-free areas pop up along our route. We even picked up some oyster mushrooms for this evening’s risotto.
The town of Pizzo is deemed to be worthy of a stop for further exploration by the Rough Guide. So we parked ourselves up in one of four dedicated motorhome parking spots which are free of charge between October & April.
We strolled down the steep hill into the town centre, bearing in mind that we would have to clamber back up that hill again to return to the van.
Our first stop was the clifftop Church of the Purgatory of Maria. Presumably they made poor old Maria walk up and down that hill a lot. We got there as the bells rang out a bizarre nursery rhyme tune to signify 12 noon. And when it had finished they did it all over again. And when that finished another church nearby chimed up with the same tune. All very odd.
From the small square at the front of the Church we got a good view down into the main Piazza.
At the far end of the Piazza are the Church of the Immaculate Conception and the Palazzo Mattei but most of the buildings around it were either Gelateria or Patisseries selling a variety of gooey looking cake.
The Castello Murat was built in 1486 by Ferdinand I of Aragon but it is actually named after Joachim Murat, who was Napoleon’s Brother In Law. He tried to raise a rebellion here against the Bourbons so that he could reclaim the throne of Naples. But his attempt failed and he was imprisoned and subsequently executed here in 1815.
Pizzo sits at the northern end of the Tropea Peninsula, which is basically the bunion on Italy’s big toe. So we thought we would explore the coastline a little further and took the SS522, which is in a truly shocking state of repair.
We pulled in at the Da Ciccio Camper Sosta in Tropea, had a spot of lunch and did a bit of banking admin while another sharp shower with a few hailstones hit the roof of the van.
Then once the weather had cleared again we clambered up the stone steps to the narrow alleyways of the old town which sits precariously on top of the cliffs.
This is the rear of the Cathedral. Inside was a bit dark and dull with the exception of some unexploded WWII ordinance, but I was intrigued by the arches around the building where somebody appeared to have forgotten to put the windows in.
We saw a numbers of buildings like this one with rectangular holes which left us scratching our heads as to what purpose they served.
Tropea seems lovely but in all honesty, like so many places we have visited on the Italian Coast, it’s closed. Possibly just for lunch in a few cases but mostly until the tourists return in greater numbers in a couple of months’ time.
We got a good look at the top of the van as we made our way back down the steps and I’m really quite embarrassed by how green it is looking. Giving it a good scrub is definitely going to have to be towards the top of my to-do list when we get home.
This is what the old town looks like from the bottom of the cliffs. Not the place to live for vertigo sufferers I would suggest.
The Santuario di Santa Maria sits on a rocky outcrop which separates the town’s beaches.
We found a Big Bench. It was a bit damp so we didn’t bother clambering onto it.
What with all the stormy weather the Sea has got a bit rough again so for the third night on the bounce we will be lulled to sleep by the pounding waves. The showery weather is due to continue for 2 or 3 days yet but hopefully the swell will have subsided a bit and the sunshine will return before we get on the ferry to Sicily sometime later this week.
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