Messina overview

Messina is a seaport and little more. The traffic congestion is horrendous and the architecture not much better, but no matter to the locals as Messina exists to serve the straits, a superhighway of waterborne vehicles. The deadly offshore currents and freight behemoths make a quick dip out of the question - the cause being the geographic fault line that lies beneath the surface which has shaped the physical and economic growth of the city in time. Both tragedy and commercial elation have surrounded the zone, with massive economic success tempered by events such as the 1908 earthquake that saw the shoreline fall and 84,000 people perish and the near-destruction by Allied bombers in WWII. The tacky port is the usual first impression for arrivals in Sicily, an unfair reflection on the rest of the island. The most modern of Sicily’s cities, Messina is also the most dismal.