A Castle Overlooking the Roads of the Champions: A Weekend in Pozzolo Formigaro

If we had arrived here around 140 BC, we would probably have travelled along one of the Roman consular roads that border the municipal territory: the Via Postumia, also called “Stradone dell'Imperatore”, which passes from the East, or from the West the Via Aemilia Scauri, known as “Via Levata”. The historic centre of Pozzolo Formigaro itself stands on a Via Quintana, proof of the strategic importance that this municipality had since the most ancient times. Today an hour of motorway from Milan is enough to get here, exactly as we did with the intention of spending a nice weekend out of town. A few minutes from the Novi Ligure toll booth you reach the town whose name would derive from the “pozzoli”, places located along the rivers where small colonies once gathered to cultivate the land and to water themselves by digging wells.

Our walk begins from the imposing Castle, which bears witness to how this town, which today wins the tourist over with its tranquillity, was once at the centre of numerous rather ferocious warlike events. The Castle of Pozzolo stands on the top of an alluvial terrace overlooking the plain, and is part of the Castelli Aperti circuit of Piedmont. It was built in 1092 by the people of Tortona, and for seven centuries this fortified village represented a very valid bulwark against Genoese expansionism in the Oltregiogo. A witness to centuries of rather eventful history, today the Castle houses the Town Hall and inside it preserves, as well as frescoes originally in the Church of Nostra Signora delle Ghiare, also a 15th-century wooden Madonna.

If in Roman times the roads around Pozzolo Formigaro were of primary importance, so it was also in much more recent times, thanks to those who travelled them on two wheels: the cycling champions Fausto Coppi and Costante Girardengo, both born a very short distance from here, (Coppi in Castellania and Girardengo in Novi Ligure), often trained along the roads connecting the neighbouring municipalities. Franco and Nino Rota, famous cycling journalists, were instead from Pozzolo Formigaro itself. The namesake of the famous composer was for many years a cycling reporter at the Gazzetta dello Sport. During our walk we admire several beautiful churches such as the Parish Church of St. Nicholas, the Parish Church of St.

Martin the Bishop and the two Oratories, of the Assumption and of the Holy Trinity, also called those of the “Battuti Bianchi” and of the “Battuti Rossi”, based on the colour of the confraternity members' robes. Chatting with the local people we learn that an important polyptych dedicated to San Sebastiano, made up of ten panels and coming from the Church of the Ghiare, is kept at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore. After this nice tour, we decide to reach the Pizzeria “Solo Pizza” da Marcello, in via Belvedere. Before abandoning ourselves to the pleasures of the palate, we settle into the elegant rooms of the adjoining hotel, furnished with period furniture. We have a decent appetite when we sit down in the large dining room of the restaurant, opened in April 2011.

“Our main specialities are pizzas and Brazilian dishes, since my wife, Thannita, is Brazilian”, Mr Marcello tells us, who runs the establishment with the help of the pizza chef Michael and the waitress Claudia. “This place was historically frequented by several show business figures”, they tell us as we begin to sip a fresh craft lager, with a slightly spicy taste. After an exquisite parade of appetisers, including Russian salad, seafood salad, savoury pies and omelettes, we begin to choose among the more than seventy pizzas available, tasting among others the pesto pizza, while the children cannot resist the sweet pizza with the excellent Pernigotti chocolate cream. The crunchy focaccias are also popular, in particular the legendary focaccia with cheese.

But the queen of our evening is the feijoada, a Brazilian one-pot dish, a tasty thick soup, made with the typical black beans, five types of meat (raw ham, sausage, pork ribs, frankfurters and bacon) and various vegetables, including potatoes, carrots and courgettes. This speciality is accompanied by plain rice, flavoured with garlic, and by the “farofa”, manioc flour. Our dinner ends in great sweetness thanks to about ten different desserts, all homemade, including tiramisù, panna cotta, a vanilla semifreddo with hot chocolate on top, and the “bianconera”, a delicious invention of Marcello's mother: dark chocolate with biscuits soaked in almond milk, with whipped cream on top... We will stop in Pozzolo Formigaro also during the warm season, when we are on our way back from the sea, also to taste a Brazilian summer dessert: mango mousse.

Francesca Bertha

FOR INFORMATION:

Pizzeria Solo Pizza da Marcello Via Belvedere, 13 Pozzolo Formigaro (AL) Tel.: 0143/417329 Did you like the article? Click “Like” on the Facebook page: L'Albero di Francesca Bertha