Reggio Calabria: the Riace Bronzes, the Falcomatà seafront and the Strait

Facing the Strait, with Sicily a few kilometres away and the outline of Etna behind it, Reggio Calabria is the main city of the peninsula’s southern tip and the gateway to the Costa Viola. Founded by the Greeks as Rhegion, it was one of the leading centres of Magna Graecia, and its National Archaeological Museum holds the Riace Bronzes, two masterpieces of 5th-century BC Greek sculpture.

The heart of the city is the Lungomare Falcomatà, a promenade of palms, old ficus trees and Liberty-style villas, with every bench turned towards the sea. Around it stand the Aragonese Castle with its towers, the cathedral rebuilt after the 1908 earthquake, and the Greek walls and Roman baths right on the shore.

Then there is bergamot, the citrus fruit that grows almost nowhere else and supplies from this coast almost the entire world market for its essential oil.

The Lungomare Falcomatà and the Arena dello Stretto

The Lungomare Falcomatà is the promenade that defines Reggio: about a kilometre and a half of huge ficus trees, palms and magnolias, with every bench turned towards the water. Gabriele D’Annunzio called it “the most beautiful kilometre in Italy” and the phrase has stuck, because the view really is that good. Across the Strait the Sicilian coast looks close enough to touch, you can pick out individual houses in Messina, and on clear days Etna closes the horizon to the south, often snow-capped well into spring.

Halfway along you reach the Arena dello Stretto, an open-air amphitheatre facing the sea, built in the 1990s where the Porto Salvo pier stood until the 1908 earthquake. At its centre rises the bronze Athena Promachos, cast in 1932 by the Messina sculptor Antonio Bonfiglio.

The Riace Bronzes and the National Archaeological Museum

The Riace Bronzes are two life-size warrior statues, just under two metres tall, cast in Greece in the 5th century BC and brought back to the surface on 16 August 1972 from the seabed off Riace Marina, on the Ionian coast of the province.

They are displayed at the National Archaeological Museum in Piazza De Nava 26, a few minutes on foot from the seafront, in a room designed specifically to preserve them. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, 9am to 8pm, with last entry at 7.30pm, and closed on Mondays.

The visit does not end with the Bronzes: five levels tell the story of Magna Graecia through finds from Locri Epizefiri, Medma, Kaulonia and Rhegion itself, from grave goods to the bronze tablets of Locri and the Head of the Philosopher recovered at Porticello. Seeing it all without rushing takes at least a couple of hours.

The Aragonese Castle, the cathedral and the Greek remains

Reggio was flattened by the earthquake of 28 December 1908 and rebuilt almost entirely: that is why the centre has straight streets and low early twentieth-century buildings, and why the ancient city survives only in fragments.

The Aragonese Castle is the most visible monument. Born as a Byzantine fortress and reworked by Normans, Swabians and Angevins, it owes its present outline to the two crenellated round towers added in 1458 under Ferdinand I of Aragon. They were declared a national monument in 1897 and stayed standing after the earthquake.

The cathedral, rebuilt in Neo-Romanesque style and consecrated on 2 September 1928, is the largest church in Calabria. On the seafront, finally, two direct traces of the ancient city remain in the open air: the Greek walls of the western circuit, with phases between the late 5th and mid-4th century BC, and the Roman baths with their pools and the black-and-white mosaic of the changing room.

The Strait, Sicily and the Fata Morgana

The Strait of Messina is just over three kilometres wide at its narrowest point, between Punta Pezzo and Capo Peloro, and from Reggio you can read the whole of it: ships heading north into the Tyrrhenian, hydrofoils cutting across, and the currents that reverse direction several times a day and which antiquity turned into the monsters Scylla and Charybdis.

In conditions of complete calm, with the right temperature difference between air and water, the Fata Morgana can appear from the Calabrian shore: a mirage that lifts and stretches the Sicilian coast, making it look suspended and startlingly close.

The Strait is also one of the Mediterranean’s major migration corridors: in spring honey buzzards, short-toed eagles and other raptors cross it in their thousands on the thermals, and the best vantage points are on the heights between Reggio, Scilla and the first slopes of Aspromonte.

Bergamot, gelato and the flavours of the city

Bergamot is the citrus fruit Reggio has almost exclusively. Citrus bergamia produces quality fruit only along the province’s coastal strip, some hundred kilometres from Villa San Giovanni round to the Ionian side. Around ninety per cent of the world’s bergamot essential oil comes from that strip: the raw material the perfume industry has been buying for two centuries, and what gives Earl Grey tea its aroma.

The essential oil is protected by the “Bergamotto di Reggio Calabria” designation of origin, recognised in 2001, and the harvest runs from November to March.

In town you mostly meet bergamot in edible form: juices, marmalades, liqueurs, and the gelato and sorbet of the green kiosk of Gelato Cesare in Piazza Indipendenza, at the start of the seafront, open since 1918 and still drawing a queue on summer evenings.

Getting to Reggio Calabria and getting around

By car you arrive on the A2 Autostrada del Mediterraneo, which runs down from Salerno to Reggio: the city is the end of the line, and the Santa Caterina exit drops you straight at the port and the centre. From Lamezia Terme it is about 130 kilometres, a little over an hour and a half of driving.

By train the station is Reggio Calabria Centrale, terminus of the Tyrrhenian line and served by long-distance connections from Rome, Naples and Milan.

The “Tito Minniti” airport of the Strait sits in the Ravagnese district, about eight kilometres south of the centre, served by Atam city buses and by its own railway stop. For Sicily there are two options: passenger hydrofoils leaving from Reggio’s port and reaching Messina in about half an hour, and car ferries from Villa San Giovanni, fourteen kilometres north, which cross the Strait in some twenty minutes. In town the centre is walkable along Corso Garibaldi, the pedestrian axis parallel to the seafront.

What to see around Reggio Calabria

Reggio works well as a day’s stop, but almost everything around it deserves a visit of its own.

To the north the coast takes you in minutes to Villa San Giovanni and then to Scilla, with the Ruffo castle on its crag and the fishing quarter of Chianalea, where the houses go right down into the water. Beyond that the Costa Viola proper begins: pebble beaches under the cliffs, terraced vineyards and the towns of Bagnara and Palmi facing the Tyrrhenian.

To the south, some thirty kilometres away, stands Pentedattilo, the abandoned village clinging to the five-fingered rock of Monte Calvario, now partly revived with craft workshops and small exhibition spaces. Higher up you enter the Greek-speaking area, where Bova still keeps the Greek of Calabria alive.

Behind the city rises Aspromonte: Gambarie is under an hour of hairpins from Reggio, and in winter you can find yourself looking at the Strait from the snow.

Where to stay: holiday homes on the Costa Viola

Our houses are on the Costa Viola, north of Reggio, between Scilla, Bagnara and Palmi: a practical base for visiting the city on a day trip, with the motorway and the coast road getting you into the centre in a little over half an hour, and the sea outside your door in the evening instead of city traffic.

A holiday home leaves you your own rhythm: you come back when you like after the museum or after sunset on the seafront, you cook the fish you bought in the village, you do not depend on anyone’s timetable. Options range from one-bedroom flats for two to apartments for families, many with a view over the Strait or a few minutes’ walk from the beach.

Check availability and send us a direct enquiry: we will help you choose the right house for your stay.

Frequently asked questions about Reggio Calabria

Where can you see the Riace Bronzes?
At the National Archaeological Museum of Reggio Calabria, Piazza De Nava 26, a few minutes on foot from the Lungomare Falcomatà. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 9am to 8pm, last entry 7.30pm, and closed on Mondays.

Can you really see Etna from Reggio Calabria?
Yes, on clear days the volcano stands out from the seafront beyond the Sicilian coast, often snow-capped from winter into spring. The light is best early in the morning and shortly before sunset.

How do you get to Sicily from Reggio Calabria?
Passenger hydrofoils leave from Reggio’s port and reach Messina in about half an hour. If you are travelling by car, use the ferries at Villa San Giovanni, fourteen kilometres north, which cross the Strait in some twenty minutes.

What is bergamot and where do you find it in Reggio?
It is a citrus fruit that grows almost only on the coastal strip of the province of Reggio, which supplies around ninety per cent of the world’s essential oil. In town you find it as juice, marmalade, liqueur and gelato, in pastry shops and local produce stores in the centre.

How far is the airport from the centre of Reggio Calabria?
The airport of the Strait is about eight kilometres from the centre, in the Ravagnese district. It is served by Atam city buses and has its own railway stop.

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