Messina is the city “Porta della Sicilia“. With its sickle-shaped port, it has always been a commercial city. It is the closest city to the Peninsula, and although for some time there has been talk of building an underwater tunnel or a bridge, never built, to connect the city to the mainland, crossing the Strait of Messina, the city is still well connected to the rest of Italy from a ferry system.

It was founded by the Greeks who gave it the name “Zancle”, which means “sickle”, linked precisely to the shape of its port. Later the Romans conquered it, then the Byzantines and then the Arabs. Finally came the Normans.

The maximum splendor was reached from Messina when, under the dominion of Svevi, Angioini and Aragonesi it became the capital of the Kingdom of Sicily and above all one of the most flourishing Mediterranean cities, thanks above all to its port and its commercial vocation.

The city of today develops along the entire coast and is almost totally modern, mainly due to the violent earthquakes that hit it several times and the bombing that the city suffered during the Second World War.

The current buildings face very wide streets and are relatively low, precisely because they have been rebuilt according to anti-seismic regulations, in order to limit the damage caused in the past by frequent earthquakes.