In 1972, film history was made in Savoca when Francis Ford Coppola selected this Sicilian hilltop settlement as the setting for Corleone in The Godfather. Located 30 kilometres southwest of Messina, the village has a population of 1,766 residents and sits on a rocky two-peaked ridge above the Ionian coast.
Recognised as one of I Borghi più belli d'Italia, Savoca maintains architectural elements spanning the medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras. Visitors can still stop at Bar Vitelli, the working café where Al Pacino's character Michael Corleone requested permission to court Apollonia.
Arancino · Pasta alla Norma · Pitone messinese
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Next up: Saint Lucy, patroness and Godfather film set, Sunday 13 December
Nearest airport: Reggio Calabria, 31 km away
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📅 Every year, on 13 December (liturgical) and the second Sunday of August (patronal feast)
Savoca celebrates Saint Lucy on 13 December; because of the cold December weather, the actual patronal feast is instead held on the second Sunday of August, in front of the church of San Nicolò, where scenes from The Godfather were filmed in 1970.
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.
