Friday 1st May 2026. Pizzo and Le Castella, Calabria, Italy
Today was all about the ice-cream 
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Our lovely Slovenian neighbours had told us about an ice-cream they had had in a little cliff village called Pizzo. Just a 30 minute or so drive away, so of course we had to try it.
The icecream is called Tartufo ( we could have had one in Tropea but where’s the fun in that?).
It came about in 1952 when the chef at a restaurant (and what is now called Dante’s) was catering for a wedding. He ran out of dishes to serve the ice-cream so made a ball with 2 different flavours, squished melted chocolate in the centre and wrapped it in rice paper. Today there are many flavours and rolled in ground almonds, cocoa powder or nuts.
As you can guess most of the establishments in Pizzo offer Tartufo but we chose to have one from the original source.
As its a bank holiday today we think parking was free – we’ll soon find out if not! Luckily, the satnav brought us in at the top of town and straight to the parking area which is having some renovation work done, but nothing was occurring today.
To get to the main centre of the town, you have to walk up a very steep road and then back down a very steep road 
, we passed people on their last legs and didn’t laugh, we knew that would be us in an hour or so!.
On the way down to the main square we passed a church with a small piazza. It was the Church of Purgatory and strangely has a skull and bones set in a glass case outside the entrance 
, I haven’t been able to find out much about it other than the church is weird on the inside too!
Onwards we descended, arriving in the already busy main square. The eateries were filling up but we fancied a little walk around before we sat down.
Pizzo is a very pretty little place, lots of little niknak shops and sellers of local produce. There was a ceramics stall in the square with some beautiful coloured pots, thank goodness we don’t have room in the van for them 
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It was lovely to see the locals out enjoying the bank holiday, everyone was in a cheerful mood. Parker definitely was, he bought a Calabria cap for €6! Bargain.
Right that’s enough mooching, we had ice-cream to try. Off to Dante’s we strode.
Meg is getting really good at going straight on her blanket and settling down, she’s learnt that only then will she get a treat 
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So, a look at the menu had us foxed. So many to choose from, what should we have?
Gareth went for his favourite – pistachio ice-cream, filled with pistachio cream and rolled in chopped, yes, you guessed it, pistachio . I was undecided – the original or the Paradisio. The original is all chocolate so I plumbed for the Paradisio – white chocolate ice-cream with blackberry ice-cream centre and a mango sauce in the middle. As a rule I don’t like Mango but just had to try the blackberry flavour.
Oh my goodness, we were in heaven. They were both delicious 
. There was a problem, and it was that the portions were big! We had to force ourselves to finish them .
Wow, what a treat, though Gareth was not looking forward to the sugar spike he was expecting later 
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We washed them down with a lemon soda and a beer. The bill was €20. Blimey that was less than we were thinking, especially sitting in the main square.
Another couple of photos looking over the castle and the sea then we started our climb back to the van. We only had to stop once which is great and shows we are getting fitter .
We have decided to cross Calabria to the other coast and work our way round to Puglia, a journey of about an hour. Our next stop was a little village just outside the capital of the Calabrian region Catanzaro, called Le Castella.
The sosta is once again, right on the beach and is very big, so much roomier than our last stop.
When we arrived the sun kept hiding behind clouds and a wind had picked up, which kept me and Meg in the van. Honestly, when I went for a reccy of the site I had to put my quilted jacket and scarf on!!!!
We were now wishing we’d stayed in Tropea . We’ll have a look around the village tomorrow when hopefully it will be a little warmer
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