Reggio di Calabria Travel Forum

Greetings from America:

My wife and I are planning one of our
annual fall European trips to seek out
new places to visit.

We would like to return to Italy, and
have considered Reggio di Calabria and
Messina to spend some time before we head
up to the Netherlands as it is always our
last stop in Europe to visit with friends.

We would like to link up with local fellow
VTer's who live local in the area to help
us with our planning ....

All help and suggestions would be appreciated,
as this would be a new area to us.

We spent a month in Italy visitng:
Venice - Sorrento - Capri & Rome, so now
we want to head further south.

Check out our "Homepage" to see our travels,
and the fellow VTer's we have met ....

Al and Mary / USA

If you're going through the trouble of crossing to Sicily, I would make Taormina rather than Messina my destination. Stunning place.

Sicily is rather different from the other places you mention. I haven't been to Messina but as far as I know it was comprehensively bombed in WW2 and doesn't really have much to recommend it from a tourist point of view. Depending on how long you have Taormina is certainly a beautiful place but virtually given over to tourism. I would suggest Siracusa a bit further down the coast. Ortygia is the old town and is a small island off the tip of Siracusa. There is also Cefalu which is less than an hour from Palermo, probably between 3 and 4 hours from Messina. It's a beach town but the old town is beautiful and the cathedral is exceptional. It bears the burden of tourism well and has great restaurants.

I completely agree with Taormina being touristy but I recommend it nevertheless for its stunning Etna views and Greek theatre. It is also closer to Messina than most other "main" sights. But yes, lovely Siracusa is very easy to reach by train from Messina and has an altogether more Sicilian flavour to it whilst still having lots of history to see.