Sicilian Apennines

Emerging directly from the sea, furrowed on the steep ridges by powerful streams, here are the Peloritani, the easternmost portion of the Sicilian Apennines. Now rugged and wild, now softly shaped, now luxuriant and green, now dotted with pretty little villages, these lands with waters rise to well over a thousand metres to form magnificent backdrops to some stretches of coast that are among the most beautiful in all Sicily. Among the many roads that go up these peaks, there is one not to be missed: the one that goes from Messina to the Antennammare sanctuary 1127 metres up. This is the first and easiest stretch of road up the Peloritani ridge, a route with great landscape beauty that goes through the dense woods of Colle San Rizzo, Pizzo Chiarino and Antennammare. Up there the spectacle you see is among the most grandiose in Sicily: a long stretch of the Ionian coast, with Messina and its "scythe", the Straits of stone.