Today's current temperature at Reggio Calabria is: 68°F Mostly cloudy
"It's not a package-tour destination"
As a former investment advisor, John Parton knows a good deal when he sees one. So when he saw how cheap the property in Calabria was, he snapped up two apartments - a two-bed in Tropea for €143,000 (£96,000) and a two-bed in Isca marina for €97,875 (£66,000). He originally looked at Tuscany and Umbria, but was really impressed by what Calabria had to offer.
"I bought here because it's emphatically not a package-tour destination," says John (pictured left with his wife, Christina). "It has calm, charisma, culture and a good climate - and the food is simply superb," he adds. "Calabria is very unspoilt - it's just so wonderfully Italian."
John was so taken by the place that he set up a company to run property-inspection tours to the area. "I realised that a lot of my clients in the UK might well be interested in buying a property here," he says, "so I formed Italian Heaven so they could have a good look around."
He believes that the boom times are just around the corner for the Calabrian property market: "Last February, Lamezia became an international airport, and down the Ionian coast the motorway is now virtually finished. It's also planned that the airport at Reggio Calabria will open up to overseas flights in future. I think this part of Italy is going to see a massive increase in value in the future."