Zambrone Holidays

The village of Zambrone is plonked in Calabria’s jade-green countryside. Point your pupils towards the coast, however, and you’ll see that it’s got plenty in the way of sandy strips. The village’s buzzing beach area, Marina di Zambrone, is a 10-minute drive away. Here, you can get your mitts on a cluster of coconut-white swathes, like one-mile-long Zambrone Beach and away-from-it-all Paradiso del Sub.

Italy’s famous for its cuisine, and Zambrone cranks things up a gear with a heap of local produce to whet your appetite. Chilli peppers, red onions and butter beans are all grown around the village. What’s more, zibibbo – a type of white grape used to make dessert wines – is grown in the surrounding vineyards. You’ll find bottles of this vino in bars all throughout Calabria, or you can go straight to the source for a sampling session.

If you’re looking to spruce up your holiday to Zambrone with a dose of ancient architecture and history, the town of Tropea’s right up your street. You can reach its clifftop centre in a 30-minute car journey along the coast. It’s loaded with pizzeria-stuffed piazzas, film-set-worthy cobbled alleyways and gelaterias that line up a markets’ worth of flavours. The star attraction, though, is the Santa Maria dell’Isola Monastery – it’s rooted on top of a giant rocky headland, so the views are off the chain.