Photo: Lucamato (CC BY-SA 4.0)
At twenty past five on the morning of 28 December 1908, an earthquake and the tsunami behind it destroyed essentially the whole of Messina. Almost nothing standing today predates it, and that is the thing to understand before you walk: this is a rebuilt city, deliberately low-rise and anti-seismic, which is why it looks nothing like Palermo or Catania. What survived is worth finding — a twelfth-century Norman church sunk below street level, a roofless Gothic hall, Montorsoli's sixteenth-century fountains. Two events of European consequence began on this strait: Rome's answer to the Mamertines opened the First Punic War in 264 BC, and in October 1347 Genoese galleys brought the plague into Europe through this port.
36 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 103 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 44 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
The cathedral rebuilt twice — after 1908 and again after the 1943 fire — and the campanile whose mechanical clock performs at noon. Montorsoli's Orion fountain stands in front of it.
The twelfth-century Catalani church, sunk below the modern street level, and the Gothic Santa Maria Alemanna. Almost the only medieval fabric left standing.
The sickle-shaped harbour that named Zancle, the Spanish fort on its arm, and the tidal race the Odyssey called Scylla and Charybdis.
Norman in origin, flattened in 1908, burned after Allied bombing in 1943, rebuilt again. Medieval fragments are set into the reconstruction.
Built by the Ungerer firm of Strasbourg for the rebuilt campanile. Its figures move at noon.
Norman-Arab, and one of the very few buildings in Messina older than 1908. It sits several metres below the modern street.
Gothic, built by the Teutonic Knights, and roofless — which is part of why it survived.
Montorsoli's fountain for the city's first aqueduct, with Orion, the mythical founder, above four river gods.
Two Caravaggios painted in Messina and Antonello da Messina's Polyptych of Saint Gregory. Three kilometres north along the shore — take the tram.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 36 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration — history, architecture, and what the earthquake left. 36 narration points across the full tour.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every significant point in the centre, plus the Museo Regionale up the coast. The survivals get deep dives; the rebuilt civic city gets focused stories.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~58 minutes total, but you walk at your own pace. 36 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.