INSIDE CALABRIA

,” a Tuscan friend said. Calabria, another world. What’s otherworldly is the beauty. Long flour-white beaches bordering a sea shifting across the blue spectrum. Roadsides dizzy with wildflowers. Purple asters, Queen Anne’s lace, pink morning glories, blooming cacti, and tumbles of vulgar magenta bougainvillea. If you drive north from the Reggio di Calabria airport, you want to pull over often, for below lies the turquoise and cobalt and indigo Tyrrhenian Sea. Calabria’s location – the misshapen toe of the boot poking into the sea – determined that this land would be an object of desire. Of the many invaders, the major influence is obvious from its Roman name: Magna Grecia. Archaeological sites dotting the map show the extent of their colonisation; as in Puglia, some areas retain Greek words in dialects. The landscape underscores Calabria’s tumultuous history. The last upheavals of the Apennines striate the region, dropping