Happy Anniversary to an exciting and fun first year of holiday Rental!

 

 

We are celebrating our first year of Holiday Rental adventure !

We started last year on August 15th 2013, at the peak of the peak season of the Italian summer, Ferragosto! Our first guests were a lovely young couple from Trani staying with us from 15th - 18th August - and now we will host again an Italian couple from Milano on Ferragosto!

It was a year of exciting and fun experiences! Initially, I thought we will only rent our residence while I am on site in Pizzo. But then after our first lovely guests, and their overwhelming great review, I got an inquiry from an English couple who wanted to rent the apartment for two weeks last September. Since my parents-in-law were staying in Calabria until October, and were willing to help out, we gave it a try. It worked out so well, they even went on a trip to Tropea together.

Over time, I think, I hope - we improved the service, amenities and decoration. We now have bedside tables, bedside lamps, a large mirror inside the wardrobe, a giant toaster - toasting uneven shaped bread slices ;-), a garden bench, new deck chairs, and more art work from local artists.

We had quiet some international guests from different countries to greet in our first year! In alphabetical order their home countries are America, Danmark, England, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Russia.

This is the perfect moment to say thank you to all our lovely guests, who decided to spend their holiday in bella Calabria, who chose Pizzo above other destinations, who trusted us, stood with us, treated our home like their home! And many special thanks to those of you who also took their time to write a helpful review, connected with us on social media, and already plan to come back to Pizzo! Thank you! Grazie! Danke! Tak! спаси́бо!

I would like to further take the opportunity to thank also the team behind Palazzo Pizzo Residence, especially Angelo and Tonino! Without their support this project would not be possible.

In case you have a spare room or apartment, I only can recommend to try the Holiday Rental adventure. I promise, you will meet interesting people and even make some new friends!

When you have read until here and are planning a holiday between Amalfi and Sicily, and want to discover Calabria, and maybe stay in Pizzo, check us out on tripadvisor.

To more exciting years to come! 
Buon Ferragosto a tutti!
A presto,

Susan

Summer in Pizzo

June and July are the perfect summer months to stay in Pizzo. It is warm but not too hot. The Pizzitani are full of energy and there are not too many tourists around yet. In the evenings though, it can get a bit chilly in piazza. I haven't been sick in years, but caught a rafreddore just now. Bummer... however, the healthy air and sunshine are curing me well. And I am doing fine enough to update our facebook page at www.facebook.com/palazzopizzo with photos and news from Pizzo.

We had a lovely couple from Finland staying with us in the residence and a surprise visitor yesterday. Maria rang the bell and introduced herself. She lived in some rooms in the primo piano over 60 year ago! It was interesting to hear her stories and a pleasure to show her the house.

Soon, I will also post some photos here - subject "street photography" or "alley photography". I am announcing it, otherwise it might get forgotten with all the things that are happening when you are on holiday in your own house and not in a hotel ;-) Until soon... x s

Special Spring Offer

Pizzo in Spring (photo S. Crosetto)

 



Palazzo Pizzo Residence is ready to welcome spring breakers!

 

If not for yourself, maybe you have friends who plan a spring break in Italy. Palazzo Pizzo Residence is the perfect place to relax in Southern Italy. Beautifully located on the "Costa degli Dei", the Coast of Gods, between Amalfi and Sicily, it's only a 25 min drive from international airport Lamezia Terme (SUF).

View Larger Map

There are many direct flights from European cities and several daily direct flights from various Italian airports to Lamezia Terme.

Other airports in the area are Reggio Calabria (1,5 h drive), Catania (Sicily, 2,5 h drive) and Naples (4 h drive).

Pizzo in Spring - the Beach is waiting for you!

Check out Palazzo Pizzo Residence's website for further information, visit the photo gallery, read about our trip to Pizzo in April, or contact us at PalazzoPizzo@gmail.com. We are happy to help planning your vacation.

We love to host you!

About changing a blog into a website ...

UPDATE 05/05/14 :  www.palazzopizzo.com is back and pointing !


I have been experimenting a bit to combine my two blogs www.palazzopizzo.blogspot.com and www.palazzopizzoresidence.blogspot.com. And after having diverted the pointer I couldn't set it back. Now, I am waiting for a technical helper to enter required code names into the Domain Name System .... (update: it's done)

In the meantime, I continue searching for a solution. I need a static front page, a landing page that does not look like a blog. I want a welcome page that guides those to the blog who want to read my posts and those to our vacation rental who are planning a holiday in Southern Italy.

So I followed some intstuctions I found on the web to tweak Blogger to use a static page as homepage. (...)  It all worked fine, at least on my desktop and tablet - but not on the smart phone (too many redirection), also the loading became slow. And you still have a blogroll on your welcome page... so I changed all back.

Wordpress and Squarespace are the platforms that offer a bit more than blogger when it comes to templates (themes) and pages. But should I dump my partner of seven years? Blogger never let me down! Never. If you are just blogging, there is no reason to change. Blogger is even easier to handle!

My experience with Wordpress lasted two (!) days (!). I worked two days to set up my website (with the "Stay" Theme), learning by doing, no content, just the structure, when all in a sudden I saw RED. Wordpress had kicked me out! A red banner was saying: your website is suspended due to violation of our terms and conditions!!
That was it! No more access.
The website wasn't even finished!

Shouldn't this be enough of a hint for me to stay with blogger?
Blogger is free with unlimited space, Squarespace starts at 8$/month and Wordpress (.com) is free-ish. For the best looking templates you have to pay. For minor adjustments (blue font?) you need to pay. And you even need to pay to have your site free of advertisement as they have the right to place ads into your posts (while you would again violate their terms and conditions when having paid links). Want to point your own domain to your Wordpress.com site? You need to pay.

While editing this post, I received an apology from Wordpress for their error and any inconvenience. They somehow detected spam, and I will have to delete my cookies before opening the site.

After that I signed up for the 14 days free trial with Squarespace. They are great for stylish websites. But if you are a blogger, then you will miss what are basics at Blogger: spelling check, better statistics, x most read posts in the last x days, you also might like these posts-widget, and an archive! (BTW I use an invisible counter from www.statcounter.com for more details).

Shortly after I messed with my domain name, I also got mail from GOOGLE, saying that they "detected a significant increase" in 404 (Page Not Found) errors for PalazzoPizzo.com - I am flattered - will fix it!

The only two things that would make me change platforms are :
1) the need of a static internet presence increased while the the blog became secondary.
2) Google who owns Blogger might decide all in a sudden to close this platform.

Let's see how my trial with Squarespaces works out...
Hopefully, I can greet you soon with a new look!

Happy month of May!

A presto
S.

Pizzo in April

"Questo mare e pieno di voci e questo cielo e pieno di visioni"

 - Pizzo Marina

We had a wonderful time in Pizzo this April. The first days, it was rainy and cold, and when the wind blows it feels even much colder. But after a few days the sun came out and spring was back. Without wind it then feels even warmer! We enjoyed lovely 20 degrees and up.

Everyday we saw people at the beach, even locals were sunbathing, and of course the usual crazy tourists from the Northern Europe who jump fearless in the beautiful clear turquoise but ice cold sea. Our son was one of them. With lots of aaah and iiihh screams he bravely swam at Pizzo Marina and even at La Seggiola, where the water was cleaner than ever without the usual little fishing boats around.

We enjoyed relaxing days in Pizzo, cleaning and ventilating the house, eating at la Nonna's house, trying the first

tartufo

ice cream of the season, inviting friends for dinner, reading books, spending a great time with visitors from Germany, going on little excursions, opening the boating season, buying local olive oil, making new friends, and participating in the Holy Week's Easter Processions.

We also went fishing, but the kids realised that they don't want to kill any of the caught fishes. We had to liberate the poor creatures (to my content) or the children would not touch any cooked or grilled fish at dinner. :-)

rainy April days in Pizzo

harbour project is still on ice ...

Spring in Calabria with little yellow flowers and olive trees

brave kids swimming at la Seggiola and Pizzo Marina

a reading session in the warm sun - warmer than inside the house!

a morning walk to the

commune

and stunning view of Pizzo from above

discovering a new great little restaurant in piazza: Il Cappero Rosso

best pizza in town at Il Cappero Rosso (photo: "Pizza Nera")

Beneditione

on Palm Sunday in piazza

most impressive the

'Affrundata

procession on Holy Thursday night from Dome San Giorgio to Chiesa San Sebastiano in Pizzo, centro storico

bye bye Calabria - with window seats on the left we spotted Capri and Ischia and Ostia antica near Rome. On a clear day, the vulcanos Stromboli and Etna (Sicily) can be seen as well.

During our stay in Pizzo, I posted on

our Facebook page

some more photos and videos. Check it out if you like. - One more month and we will be back in town! A presto!