We will be in Calabria beginning of October ‘’18. Will be staying in Reggio Calabria for one week. Already have accommodations. There aren’t many good travel guides on this part of Italy. Lonely Planet and TripAdvisor have been my main sources of research.
We’ll visit the Arch. Museum in Reggio and plan on a day trip to Messina.
Any advice from those who have been to Calabria would be welcome.
We don’t intend to rent a car.
Thanks in advance.
Posted by
Washington DC
28436 posts
I've seen recommendations for Tropea (in Calabria) but have never been there. I gather that it is picturesque, not just a stretch of sand, but seek confirmation on that. It's a 2-hour trip by train.
Best not to expect too much from Messina. I don't think it's considered one of Sicily's great spots. I was only there for one late afternoon and evening, so I admit that I didn't give it a lot of time, but I didn't find it particularly interesting. The Duomo, however, is clearly worth a visit. Please do not judge Sicily by Messina.
There's a weekday 8:35 AM train that--after two connections--gets you to Taormina in a bit over three hours. I wouldn't normally recommend such a long trek to a day-trip destination, but Taormina is beautiful and frankly so touristy that a few hours was all I wanted to spend there (others disagree). The problem is that if there is an issue with that train, your time in Taormina will sink to zero, so I'd check with locals once in Reggio about the reliability of trains across the straits. In 2015 my night train sat in Villa San Giovanni for about 3 hours.
Posted by
Chicago
2124 posts
In 2015 my night train sat in Villa San Giovanni for about 3 hours.
Nice to have acraven to be the guinea pig for all of us!
Yeah, that kind of thing would turn a quasi-compulsive planner like myself batty, so I'll just have to have Plan B (and possibly C) at the ready. We are considering flying into Naples, staying one night, and then taking a train to Maratea, about halfway to Villa San Giovanni. Friends stayed there this spring and the pictures of the mountains next to the water were breathtaking.
We'd stay two nights in Maratea, then try making it to Taormina (yes, touristy but was our 1st stop on our 1st trip to Italy so it has sentimental value) in one day, doable in theory. Some delay at Villa S.G. would be tolerable, almost expected? And of course there's never any specific reason for the hold-up, correct?
Posted by
Washington DC
28436 posts
There was some construction equipment around the rail yard at VSG at the time of my 2015 visit, so one could speculate, but who knows? At the end of my Sicilian sojourn I spent a night in Messina to catch a bus to Puglia the following morning. The bus was many hours late (problems with the air conditioning). Stuff happens, and not just in Italy. Though I should perhaps mention that I'm retired and spending summers in Europe, so there's a lot of time for something to go wrong. It's just that there's not a lot of room for delay when you're planning a day-trip to a distant spot.
Posted by
Boise, ID, USA
2332 posts
We enjoyed visiting Scilla, not too far from Reggio Calabria.