The double name tells a double story. «Pozzo di Gotto» has nothing to do with the Goths: it was the well of a gentleman, Nicolò Goto of Messina, who irrigated his land between the Idria and Longano torrents — a document of 1463 already calls it «Puzzo de Gotho». «Barcellona» comes instead from Spain: to the Iberians this plain between the Peloritani and the sea recalled their own Barcelona, and some bring in a family of sponge merchants who fled from there. The two villages sat on the two banks of the Longano and obeyed two different masters: Pozzo di Gotto answered to Milazzo, and freed itself in 1639; Barcellona to Castroreale, and took almost two centuries longer.
When Ferdinand II joined them in 1836, he rejected every proposed name drawn from the river and imposed the two names side by side: ever since, the town has lived as a double one, with two cathedrals and two souls that the bridge stitched into the capital of the Tyrrhenian plain of Messina. The countryside around is an open-air nursery: ornamental horticulture is the trade that made the district's national name. The Jalari park museum, up in the hills, gathers Sicilian country life into a village-workshop; the Teatro Mandanici is the town stage. The comune climbs from the sea to nearly one thousand two hundred metres at Colle del Re, and the Longano, quiet almost always, burst its banks in 2011 and carried a bridge away. Milazzo and the boats for the Aeolian Islands are ten minutes off.
chiesa del Carmine · chiesa del Santissimo Crocifisso · chiesa dell'Immacolata and 12 more
Arancino · Pasta alla Norma · Pitone messinese
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Next up: Saint Sebastian and Saint Vitus, and the Good Friday Vare, Wednesday 20 January
Nearest airport: Reggio Calabria, 39 km away
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📅 Every year, on 20 January (Saint Sebastian) and 15 June (Saint Vitus)
Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto celebrates Saint Sebastian on 20 January and Saint Vitus on 15 June; every Good Friday since 1621 the Procession of the Vare has taken place, with twenty-six floats depicting the mysteries of the Passion.
chiesa del Carmine The sanctuary of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on the hill above Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, founded in 1579. 
chiesa del Santissimo Crocifisso The seventeenth-century church of the Holy Crucifix in Barcellona, with twin bell towers and a statue of Saint chiesa dell'Immacolata The eighteenth-century Immacolata church in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, with six oval paintings and Good Friday 
chiesa delle Anime Purganti The seventeenth-century oratory of the Souls in Purgatory in Pozzo di Gotto, with Serpotta-style stucco and a 
chiesa di Gesù e Maria The church of the Jesus and Mary confraternity in Pozzo di Gotto, with Jannelli paintings and the Holy Week Ec 
chiesa di San Giovanni Battista The Baroque church of San Giovanni Battista in Barcellona, with twin onion-domed towers and statues by Melchio Saffron rice, ragù with peas and caciocavallo inside a golden cone-shaped crust: in Catania it is masculine and pointed, and the quarrel with Palermo over the name is serious.
Read more →A thin sheet of dough folded into a half-moon and fried, with escarole, tuma cheese, anchovies and black pepper inside: Messina’s street food, to eat hot straight from the rosticceria.
Read more →Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, but an easy day trip away.
