Discover Reggio Calabria

Reggio Calabria is the largest city in Calabria, with about 170,000 people, on the Strait of Messina at the very toe of the Italian mainland.

Sicily is three kilometres away across the water and permanently in view, with Etna behind it on clear days.

The city is almost entirely twentieth-century, because the 1908 earthquake levelled it. What replaced it is a regular low-rise grid with a good deal of Liberty-style detail, laid out along the shore.

Its one unmissable thing is the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, which holds the Riace Bronzes and the finest collection of Magna Graecia material anywhere.

Along the water runs the Lungomare Falcomatà, a kilometre of promenade with palms, Liberty villas and fragments of the Greek city walls, facing the strait.

Behind the city the Aspromonte rises steeply to nearly two thousand metres.