Reggio Calabria: a small airport, a big one, a strait

Reggio Calabria has its own airport, the Aeroporto dello Stretto, with 567,898¹ passengers from January to July 2026, but Calabria's main airport is Lamezia Terme (SUF), which handled 3,049,594² passengers in 2025, and from Sicily you cross the Strait to Villa San Giovanni.

Two airports, very different sizes

Reggio's airport handled 567,898¹ passengers in the first seven months of 2026, 95,850¹ of them in July. Over the same months Lamezia Terme passed 1,961,184¹, more than three times as many.

Lamezia Terme, IATA code SUF, is the main airport of Calabria, with 3,049,594² passengers in 2025, up 12.4%² on 2024, twentieth in Italy. It's run by SACAL.

The choice is a trade-off. Reggio's airport is on your doorstep with fewer flights, Lamezia has the flights but a transfer that the data verified for this page doesn't cover, so price the onward leg before you book the cheaper ticket.

From Sicily: the fast boat to Villa San Giovanni

The Blu Jet fast boat, part of the FS group, crosses from Messina Porto Storico to Villa San Giovanni in 20 minutes, with 16 runs a day in each direction on the timetable in force since December 14, 2025. The first boat leaves Messina at 5:20 am and the last at 11:50 pm, and the first from Villa San Giovanni sails at 5:45 am.

A single costs €2.50 and a same-day return €4.50 (2026), and an ordinary pass for 40 trips within 45 days costs €60. You can buy at the port ticket offices, in the MooneyGo app, or together with a Trenitalia or Italo ticket.

Villa San Giovanni is not Reggio: the port is about 14 km from the city. Blu Jet's site has menu entries for a Messina to Reggio route, but its timetable and fare pages answered 404³ on September 1, 2026, so this page doesn't claim a direct boat.

With a car: Caronte & Tourist

Caronte & Tourist runs the car ferry between Villa San Giovanni and Messina 24 hours a day, every day. In September 2026 a single for a car with up to five people costs €43.20⁴, plus a €2.30 fuel surcharge and €0.60 ETS tax, and each extra passenger adds €2.50.

A same-day return costs €47.20⁴, a return within 3 days €53.40⁴ and a return within 90 days €85.50⁴. There's a night fare of €37.90⁴ between 22:00 and 04:00, available from September 15 to July 15. These rates were valid for September 1 to 30, 2026 and change by season, and the operator treats single departure times as indicative.

To the Riace bronzes on foot

The National Archaeological Museum, home of the Riace bronzes, is at Piazza De Nava 26, about two minutes on foot from Reggio Calabria Lido station. City buses link it to the airport and the port, but the museum doesn't give line numbers or frequencies, and this page can't either.

The city is at Reggio Calabria, the museum at the Reggio archaeological museum, and every Strait crossing compared at ferries to Sicily.

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