Forza d'Agrò

The first record of the settlement, vicum Agrillae, is in a 1117 decree of Roger II. It names a lower site, the one the residents eventually abandoned when they moved uphill to the rock and renamed the place Fortilicium d'Agrò, the fortress of Agrò, a name the ruin on the peak still carries. The move from lower ground to the high rock explains the layout that remains: the fortress and its silhouette at the top, the mother church rebuilt after the 1648 and 1693 earthquakes lower down, and the Trinità with its convent of Sant'Agostino set apart from both, reached by its own staircase.

The village looks north to Calabria across the strait and sits ten kilometers from Taormina, close enough to the coast to be seen from it but built with its back to the sea. What the earthquakes and the rebuilding left behind is a village whose churches carry more damage and repair in their walls than its ruined castle does, a place shaped as much by disaster and recovery as by the Norman name on the summit.

From Catania (CTA), about 1h 28m by car.

By car from the centre of Palermo 3h 40m.

Coming by train into Messina Centrale? Forza d'Agrò is about 1 hour away by road.

Every town within reach of Catania airport.