In 36 BC, off this coast, Octavian's fleet beat that of Sextus Pompey: it was the battle of Naulochus, and with it ended the war that had held Rome in check. The naval basin, scholars believe, lay where the Giammoro marsh is today.
Long before that, elephants walked this coastal plain: digging for houses turned up the bones of Elephas mnaidriensis. The comune, by contrast, is very young — 1921, split off from Santa Lucia del Mela — and its finest buildings date from the time of the Benedictines: the mother church of 1763 and the seahorse fountain. There are 6,388 residents.
Arancino · Pasta alla Norma · Pitone messinese
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Next up: The Madonna della Visitazione, patroness first recorded in expense accounts from 1706, Friday 2 July
Nearest airport: Reggio Calabria, 33 km away
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📅 Every year, on 2 July
Pace del Mela celebrates the Madonna della Visitazione on 2 July, first attested by an expense account as early as 1706; the wooden group of the Visitation, made in 1870 by the Messina sculptor Michele Cangeri, is carried in procession through the town's streets.
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 Pace del Mela, but an easy day trip away.
