Campo Calabro: hilltop forts above the Strait of Messina

Spread across a natural terrace looking out over the Strait of Messina, Campo Calabro is a town of about 4,500 people at the very tip of Calabria, in the metropolitan area of Reggio Calabria. From its heights the eye takes in the Sicilian coast, the cone of Etna and, on clear days, the distant Aeolian Islands.

The Umbertine forts

The town's most striking sights are its 19th-century forts. Forte Siacci, at Matiniti Superiore, and Forte Poggio Pignatelli belong to a chain of fortresses built between the 1880s and the First World War to defend the strategic strait against attack. Forte Siacci, the largest on the Calabrian shore, is a vast earth-covered military complex with ingenious systems for ventilation and water collection, and commands sweeping panoramas in every direction.

A terrace over the strait

People have lived here since Roman times, when a villa stood on the route towards the strait, and the modern town grew from the 17th century around the church of Santa Maria Maddalena. Today the high ground and its woods make fine walking, with the blue line of the sea always in view.

Getting there

Campo Calabro is about twelve kilometres north of Reggio Calabria, just above Villa San Giovanni, where the ferries cross to Sicily.