Across choppy waters glistening like hammered copper, the sun begins its slow descent behind the volcanic island of Stromboli, which seems to float on the horizon beyond the Tyrrhenian Sea.
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which → glisten → Sea
Twice a year from this charming terrace at Capovaticano Resort, guests can watch a ‘Ulysses’ sunset’ – the moment the sun drops precisely into the often-smouldering crater of the active volcano.
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sun → watch → volcano
Legend goes that the spectacle was such a thing of beauty that Ulysses – or Odysseus – was inspired to change course in Homer’s epic poem to head for the Aeolian Islands, where Stromboli is found.
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Stromboli → go → Islands
I’ve missed it by weeks.
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I → miss → weeks
The sky still blushes peach, deepens to rose and fades to dusky violet – the colours, for a moment or two, echoing the amber-red hues of my bittersweet negroni cocktail.
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colours → blush → cocktail
Conversation stays low, glasses chink, and behind me someone slurps a bowlful of pasta.
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someone → stay → pasta
If this view were in Santorini or on the Amalfi Coast, I would be elbowing for a spot by the rail, phone aloft.
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I → elbow → rail
There the likeness ends.
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likeness → end → ?
Calabria, the ‘toe’ of Italy’s boot, is home to Tropea with its southern Italian charm, colourful buildings and narrow streets
‘Ulysses’ sunset’ is when the sun sets in the mouth of the Stromboli volcano
The sunsets at the resort mimic the vibrant cocktails on offer
Each summer the Cornish grumble about ‘emmets’ – their word for ants – as the visitors swarm across the Tamar.
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visitors → set → Tamar
Calabria would happily take a few... and the region certainly deserves more.
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region → take → more
While Italy has never been more popular – with a staggering 185 million international arrivals last year – Calabria rarely makes typical itineraries of British holidaymakers.
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Calabria → make → holidaymakers
A mere 22,600 of us went in 2025.
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22,600 → go → 2025
Meanwhile, it has not enjoyed a mainstream lift in the way, for example, Sicily has with its inclusion in The White Lotus TV series, or been boosted by the opening of a raft of luxury hotels.
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Sicily → enjoy → hotels
Then there’s nearby Puglia, which has in recent years shed its image as a quiet domestic holiday haunt – helped by better flight connections – to become one of Europe’s most coveted summer escapes.
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which → ’ → escapes
Yet Calabria is every bit as compelling as these Italian hotspots drawing the crowds.
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Calabria → draw → crowds
The southern-most tip of the Italian peninsula, with its 500 miles of coastline, has been crossed by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Normans, Arabs and Bourbons, each leaving a layer behind.
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each → cross → layer
There are still mountain villages where Grecanico is spoken, a variety of Greek that has outlasted the many empires that have ruled here.
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that → be → empires
When the English artist and poet Edward Lear tramped through the region in 1847, he considered it one of Europe’s least-known corners.
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it → tramp → corners
Nearly 180 years later, his observation still carries a ring of truth.
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observation → carry → truth
Isola Bella Beach, on the Gulf of Saint Euphemia, part of the Tyrrhenian Sea
But this loose sense of ‘undiscovered’ feels like one of the rarest luxuries in travel.
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sense → feel → travel
‘It’s no lie to say Calabria is what Puglia was 20 years ago,’ says a hotelier I meet.
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I → ’ → ?
‘I say to go now while you can still find space on a beach and Italians still think it’s worth it.
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Italians → say → beach
Only once can you discover somewhere as new.’
Heading south from Lamezia Terme International Airport, which Ryanair flies to year-round from London Stansted, the road moves from coast to inland and out again, past citrus groves and low-rise beach resorts that hug the Gulf of Saint Euphemia.
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that → discover → Euphemia
Hairpin bends tighten, and the sea comes in snatches between railway arches.
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sea → tighten → arches
Just north of Pizzo, a town of ochre houses piled on a tufa cliff, I inexplicably think of Cornwall once more.
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I → pile → Cornwall
The shore is a sweep of pale sand between dark headlands – Sennen Cove, on Cornwall’s north coast, transplanted to the Tyrrhenian.
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shore → transplant → Tyrrhenian
If you’ve heard of Calabria at all, it is probably because of ’nduja.
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it → hear → nduja
The soft, fiery pork salami has endeared itself to Britons.
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salami → endear → Britons
You will find it smeared over sourdough, melted into pasta sauces, dolloped on pizzas.
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it → find → pizzas
It’s permeated so thoroughly into our lives that it even makes an appearance on Wetherspoons’ pizzas.
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it → permeate → pizzas
I bet far fewer people know where it comes from.
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it → bet → where
In Spilinga, a village of fewer than 2,000 people and the birthplace of ’nduja, I tour the Salumificio Livasi factory.
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I → tour → factory
The Porcelli family has made cured meat here for three generations, and formally established the business in 2012.
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family → make → 2012
In the production room, staff grind pork rich in fat (the reason ’nduja spreads instead of slicing) with Calabrian chillies.
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nduja → grind → chillies
It’s these chillies that give the mixture its deep, brick-red colour and provide its heat.
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that → ’ → heat
Spicy ’nduja, for which the region is known
Villa Paola is an upscale five-star boutique hotel set inside a restored 16th-century Franciscan monastery
The paste is packed in its casing, pressed free of air, tied, then smoked and hung for at least 30 days but often for many months.
Giuseppe Porcelli, whose family runs the firm, tells me that ’nduja, like much of Calabrian cooking, grew out of cucina povera, or ‘poor kitchen’, Italy’s peasant tradition of wasting nothing.
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nduja → know → nothing
Humble origins have not kept Calabrian cooking from going upmarket.
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origins → keep → cooking
A long, unhurried meal at De’ Minimi, the restaurant at boutique hotel Villa Paola, delivers local cuisine at its most refined.
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meal → deliver → refined
Its five-course tasting menu ‘Miserie e Nobiltà’ (‘Poverty and Nobility’, £80pp) sources much from the gardens of a 16th-century former convent.
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menu → source → convent
The kitchen takes simple ingredients (turnip tops, red onions, white fish) and gives them a jolt of fine-dining treatment – pasta made with 42 egg yolks arrives in a deeply savoury sauce of ‘cryo-extracted’ red onion, its juice drawn out by freezing.
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juice → take → freezing
…and 12 more, not listed.
The Aporia
