What to see in Villa San Giovanni, a city in Calabria where you can take the ferry to reach the Sicilian coasts through the Strait of Messina, with a brief history and description of the main neighborhoods.
Tourist information
The southern area of the inhabited area of Villa San Giovanni continues, in Bolano, the metropolitan area of Reggio Calabria, while to the north, at Marina di San Gregorio, a town located at the mouth of the San Gregorio stream, it borders on Scilla.
Villa San Giovanni overlooks the Strait of Messina, at the point where mainland Italy is closest to Sicily, also its port is the main embarkation point for Messina.
In the town there is no trace of its past, the current aspect is that of a shopping center, fishing port and agricultural center.
In addition to this Villa San Giovanni has a beautiful promenade and a beach surrounded by citrus orchards and orchards.
What see
The Acciarello district represents the southernmost area of the city, where the parish of Santi Cosma e Damiano and an elementary school are located.
Dating back to the eighteenth century, this inhabited area took its name from the Azzarello, a family of refugees originally from Messina fleeing the plague epidemic that broke out in 1742-1743, who bought several lands to settle there together with their workers.
The hamlet of Cannitello, which represents the northern border of Villa San Giovanni, constitutes one of the few inhabited centers with houses directly facing the beach.
In the district of Pezzo there is the homonymous Punta, which is the closest point to the Sicilian bank of the Strait, where the Sanctuary of Maria Santissima delle Grazie is located.
In the hamlet of Piale, which is located in a panoramic position over the Strait, there is the parish of Santa Croce.
The churches of Villa San Giovanni, which dated back to the period between the eighth and ninth centuries, were destroyed by the 1908 earthquake and rebuilt from 1920.
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The churches of the Madonna Immacolata and Madonna del Rosario are the main places of worship in the area.
