Page 259 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

GETTING AROUND: MESSINA, TAORMINA AND THE
NORTHEAST

By bus Fast buses are the most convenient link between Messina and Milazzo.
Travelling south down the coast, local buses get snarled up in the succession of towns
and villages along the coast – an excruciatingly slow ride passing pretty much
nowhere you would want to stop (or even see). Far better to take one of the fast buses
via the autostrada whenever you can.

By train Palermo-bound trains running west from Messina stop at Milazzo and Capo

d’Orlando. The line traces the shoreline pretty much all the way, allowing sparkling
views across to Calabria on a clear day.

By road The toll autostradas (the A18 south and A20 west) are the fastest way to get
around the northeast, plunging through some fairly dramatic scenery as they cruise
above the sea.

Messina

MESSINA may well be your first sight of Sicily, and from the ferry it’s a fine one,
stretching out along the seaboard, north of the distinctive hooked harbour from which
the city took its Greek name – Zancle (Sickle). The natural beauty of its location,
looking out over the Straits to the forested hills of Calabria, is Messina’s best point;
Shakespeare (who almost certainly never laid eyes on the city) used it as the setting
for his Much Ado About Nothing. Yet the city itself holds only a few buildings of any
historical or architectural interest, dotted along streets that are either traffic-choked or

used as racetracks by drivers who rank among the most reckless in Sicily. The
unedifying appearance is not entirely Messina’s own fault: the congestion is largely
the result of the surrounding mountains, which squeeze the traffic along the one or two
roads that link the elongated centre with the northern suburbs. Messina’s modern
aspect is more a tribute to its powers of survival in the face of a record of devastation
that’s high even by Sicily’s disaster-prone standards (see The trials and tribulations of

Messina). Consequently, the attractions of Messina itself are limited, and can be seen
quickly.

If you’re here in summer, you’ll notice the passage of the tall-masted felucche, or
swordfish boats, patrolling the narrow channel, attracted to these rich waters from
many kilometres up and down the Italian coast. You can enjoy their catch the same day

in the city or a little way north at Ganzirri, where gaudy lakeside fish restaurants
provide some relief from the city. Beyond, and around the corner of Punta del Faro,
lidos line the coast at Mortelle, whose beaches, bars and pizzerias are where the city
comes to relax. Messina’s wide remodelled boulevards, the best of them lined with