Goodbye Overcrowded Tuscany: This Italian Region Is Quietly
Replacing It as the Summer Destination
You have probably scrolled past a dozen reels of the
Amalfi Coast this week alone. Tuscany? You could navigate its wine
roads blindfolded. But mention Calabria – the toe of the Italian
boot – and even seasoned travelers draw a blank. That gap between
reputation and reality is exactly what makes this southern region
so compelling right now, a place where ancient myth lives in
everyday gestures and a gelato shop in a town you have never heard
of can deliver one of the best scoops of your
life.
Where myths still breathe and children build giants for
fun
In the coastal town of Pizzo,
painter and ceramist Antonio Montesanti can make modern traffic
dissolve into antiquity. Local fishermen, he explains, still
scratch a crosshatched pattern with their nails into the cheeks of
every swordfish they land. The ritual is meant to release the souls
of the Myrmidons, the loyal warriors of Achilles who, according to
legend, were transformed into these silver-blue fish after their
commander’s death. It is the kind of detail that sounds like a
museum placard until you realize people are doing it
right now, on boats you can see from the harbor.
A short drive south in the
ramshackle town of Nicotera – chosen in 1957 as one of the earliest
data-collection sites for what would become the Mediterranean diet
– three boys, roughly 10 or 11 years old, were spotted reenacting
the early-medieval legend of Mata and Grifone. Normally these
figures appear as giant papier-mâché puppets during local feast
days. But this was no feast day. The kids had fashioned their own
towering Giganti from cardboard boxes, dishwashing gloves, and
wooden chairs, parading them uphill while a third boy hammered a
drum. No screens, no agenda – just the sheer joy of living inside a
story.
The coast of the gods and beyond
The stretch of Calabria that
international visitors do occasionally find is the Costa degli Dei,
or Coast of the Gods, a 34-mile ribbon of Tyrrhenian shoreline
running from Pizzo to Nicotera. White beaches trade off with sheer
cliffs and rocky coves, and Tropea sits at its heart – the only
municipality in the entire region where foreign visitors outnumber
Italians. Sandstone palazzi line its narrow streets, a medieval
cathedral houses a 12th-century altar painting of the Virgin Mary,
and from the steep seaward edge of the old town you can watch the
sun drop behind Stromboli, roughly 30 nautical miles to the
west.
Tropea is an hour’s taxi ride
from Lamezia Terme International Airport, also reachable by train
from Rome or Naples. But the deeper rewards of Calabria require a
car and a willingness to wander. At the tip of the regional toe
sits Reggio Calabria, the most populous city, facing Sicily and
Mount Etna across the Straits of Messina. Its archaeological museum
holds the Riace Bronzes, two fifth-century BCE Greek warrior
statues pulled from the seabed in 1972 – works of such physical
authority they make you involuntarily straighten your
posture.
Head east along the Ionian coast
and the scenery shifts again. Near the marine reserve of Capo
Rizzuto, the 32-room Praia Art Resort in Praialonga offers barefoot
luxury with hammocks suspended above the surf. Luxury travel
outfitter Authentic Explorations, led by Gary Portuesi and
Calabrian native Marco Palermo, launched itineraries here in summer
2025. Their six-night journey, called Savoring & Unveiling
Calabria, threads through swordfish tastings, Calabrian chiles,
cipolla rossa onions, and the iconic Tartufo di Pizzo, a ball of
gelato encased in chocolate or hazelnuts. They recommend at least
five nights between April and October.
Silk, gelato, and the restaurants only locals know
Calabria’s Ionian side rewards
the curious. In the hilltop hamlet of Martone, chef-owner Pino
Trimboli at La Collinetta serves organic pasta on terra-cotta roof
tiles – farmworker style – including tagliolini with porcini
mushrooms. In the hill town of San Floro, a cooperative called Nido
di Seta, founded in 2013, has planted more than 3,000 mulberry
trees and revived organic-silk production. Some 20,000 silkworms
consume over a thousand pounds of leaves each month to yield
roughly 90 pounds of silk per year. The cooperative produces its
own scarves and dresses and in 2023 began supplying silk to
Gucci – a milestone for a region better known for
exporting talent like Gianni Versace, who was born in Reggio
Calabria and started out at his mother’s dressmaking
atelier.
Then there is the food. At a
gelateria called K2 in the unassuming town of Cutro, the
stracciatella delivers creamy fior di latte packed with dark
chocolate chunks, and the coffee flavor tastes as though someone
froze a fresh espresso and dusted it with hazelnut crumble. In
Pizzo, Franco di Iorgi at Bar Gelateria Ercole – rival to Bar Dante
across the Piazza della Repubblica – serves a standout strawberry
granita alongside the classic tartufo. And Calabria has moved well
beyond gelato: Michelin-starred Dattilo, on the Ceraudo family’s
organic winery a 30-minute drive north of Crotone, opens its
tasting menu with a fried phyllo sfogliatella filled with
caciocavallo podolico cheese and sardella, a spicy paste of
whitebait, peperoncino, and wild fennel seed sometimes called the
caviar of the poor.
Just inland from Tropea, a rural
property called Le Breste in the village of Brattirò serves fileja
pasta with Tropea onions and pours wines from regional producers
working with native grape varieties. Its guest rooms were restored
using le breste, local adobe bricks made from mud and wheat husks.
Even the hotel industry insider who recommended it seemed unsure
outsiders would appreciate it – a telling sign that Calabria still
harbors places frequented almost exclusively by locals.
What you should take away
Calabria occupies a rare position
in Italian travel: ancient enough to carry myths in its daily
rituals, undiscovered enough that you can stand alone in a hilltop
piazza that would be overrun with selfie-takers in Tuscany. Gary
Portuesi of Authentic Explorations compares it to Sicily two
decades ago, before high-end tourism reshaped that island – he
helped launch that wave when he founded what was then called
Authentic Sicily in 2002. The infrastructure is growing, the
Michelin stars are multiplying, and the silk is heading to Gucci.
If you have been waiting for the right moment to explore the toe of
Italy’s boot, the window between hidden gem and open secret is
closing fast.