Messina is Italy's ferry gateway to Sicily — most visitors pass through without stopping, which is a mistake. The city was almost entirely destroyed by the 1908 earthquake, one of the deadliest in European history, and rebuilt in a hurry in a low-rise style that gives it a different feel to the baroque grandeur of Palermo or Catania. But that rebuilding left a city that wears its resilience openly, and the things that survived or were restored from the rubble — the cathedral with its extraordinary clock, the Caravaggio paintings in the regional museum, the Norman church of the Annunziata — are extraordinary precisely because of what they endured.
The Strait of Messina, just a few hundred metres wide at its narrowest point, dominates the city's identity. You're always aware of Calabria across the water, and the ferries crossing back and forth are a constant presence. Spend at least half a day here, more if you visit the regional museum seriously.