Calabria

The toe of Italy's boot, mountainous and coastal in alternation, with a Greek colonial past that left more standing ruins than the rest of mainland southern Italy combined and a food culture built on chilli, 'nduja, and a bergamot citrus that grows nowhere else in the world. Calabria remains the least visited of Italy's southern regions — an absence that has preserved it with unusual intensity. The Aspromonte national park, the baroque city of Reggio Calabria, the Ionian coast at Tropea: none of them are overrun, and all of them repay the effort of getting there.Our Calabria coverage approaches the region on its own terms — not as the poor relation of Campania or Sicily, but as a place with a distinct culture, a remarkable landscape, and food traditions that deserve serious attention.