Does your day start like this? You mobile-order an iced caramel macchiato, scroll your social feeds and maybe type an AI prompt to help you research a project for work. Italians living on the Calabria peninsula, the "toe" of the country's "boot," greet the day a bit differently. They tend a flock of sheep, make cheese, inspect the olive and bergamot citrus groves or fish for swordfish, bluefin tuna and sardines.

This region of Italy, still mostly undiscovered by Americans, is gifted with more than 500 miles of prime coastline — the Tyrrhenian Sea to the north, the Ionian Sea to the south and Sicily just a quick ferry ride to the west.