Things to Do in Messina

Messina is the arrival point for most ferries from the Italian mainland, and the astronomical clock on the cathedral bell tower — one of the largest of its kind — puts on a mechanical show at noon that costs nothing to watch. Most visitors pass through rather than stay, using it as a base for Tindari's sanctuary and Roman ruins or for ferries onward to Milazzo and the Aeolian Islands. The city itself was largely rebuilt after the 1908 earthquake, so architecture-wise it's more early-20th-century than historic Sicilian town.