Pizzo

Pizzo is a clifftop town in Vibo Valentia Province on the Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria, built above a deep-water bay where the coastline drops abruptly to the sea below. The town is known throughout Italy for two things: the tartufo di Pizzo — a hard-shelled chocolate ice cream with a liquid centre, invented here in the 1950s and now a PGI-registered product — and the Castello Murat, a 15th-century Aragonese coastal fortress where Gioacchino Murat, King of Naples and one of Napoleon's marshals, was imprisoned and executed by firing squad in 1815 after a failed attempt to retake his throne. The castle, jutting on a rocky spit into the Tyrrhenian Sea at the edge of the cliff, has been converted into a museum preserving the cell where Murat spent his final days, his execution plaque on the exterior wall of the courtyard, and period furnishings and historical documents relating to the Napoleonic period in southern Italy. The town itself is picturesque: Piazza della Repubblica, the main square, sits at the cliff edge with views across the bay to the Calabrian coast stretching south; the lanes behind it are lined with pasticcerias and bars serving the tartufo di Pizzo in multiple variations. The Piazza is also the town's social centre, and the evening aperitivo hour sees the square and the adjacent belvedere fill with locals. A second attraction is the Chiesa di Piedigrotta, a church carved into the tufa cliffs on the beach below the town, reached by steps from the lungomare, with interior sculptures also cut from the living rock. Pizzo is approximately 30 minutes from Lamezia Terme airport by car and makes a convenient stop on routes between the airport and Tropea.