It has sandy beaches, hilltop towns and emerald seas to make fans of Italy swoon, yet this southernmost region remains an undiscovered gem
et’s start with an exclusive: “Italian town wants more tourists and cruise passengers.” It’s true that many in Italy are fed up with the country’s 22 million annual visitors, and that its most celebrated city has banned cruise liners and makes tourists pay a daily tax, but in deepest Calabria, as in several other areas, overtourism is not an issue – rather the opposite.
Anatomically, that’s some way off: Calabria is Italy’s toe. But let’s see how accurate the rest is, starting with the brigands. The unification of Italy in 1861 did not unite the country economically. People in the north did well; the many times colonised peninsula of Calabria did not. That list does not include Tropea, Calabria’s undoubted success story, which is a couple of hours west on the Tyrrhenian Sea, looking out to Sicily and the Aeolian islands.The route into Tropea from the north looks like a straight coast road on the map, but the vertiginous cliffs and inaccessible bays force you up and down and round hairpin bends.
For those who want sun and sand, hotels 15 minutes from town cost a fraction of the price of similar places in Amalfi: theis aimed more at couples . I heard plenty of German spoken, a little French and Danish – but no English. The city of Reggio Calabria is an interesting, if tortuous, 90-minute drive to the south. Visitors to its National Archaeological Museum of Reggio Calabria currently have to settle for looking at its celebrated Riace bronzes, made in about 450BC, through a glass pane. Inside, the archaeologists have their laptops and cameras set up while they try to resolve the several mysteries about the figures’ origins.
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