SCILLA-The legendary Strait of Messina

On the way to Reggio Calabria, we stop in Scilla, where we learn about the myth of 'Scylla and Charybdis'

Fresco by Alessandro Allori (1535–1607), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons,https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caught_between_a_rock_and_a_hard_place.jpg

After a brief detour to Naples, I will now continue reporting on our journey through Calabria. We have already explored the picturesque village of Pizzo with its world-famous Tartufo ice cream, and let ourselves be enchanted by the mythical siren song in Capo Vaticano. Now, we are heading further south, towards Reggio Calabria.

On the way lies Scilla, a small village named after Homer’s sea monster, Scylla. Ovid writes that Scylla was once a nymph who was loved by the sea god Glaucus. However, Scylla rejected his advances, prompting Glaucus to ask the witch Circe for help in winning Scylla’s heart. However, Circe was in love with Glaucus herself and, instead of helping him, transformed Scylla into a hideous sea monster. Since then, she is said to have lived near the present-day location of Scilla and was feared by all sailors who passed through the Strait of Messina, as she would attack passing ships with her six heads. According to Homer, on the opposite shore of the sea, in Sicily, lived Charybdis, another sea monster who swallowed vast amounts of seawater three times a day and then spewed it back out, creating deadly waves for sailors. Even Odysseus, on his journey back to Ithaca, passed through the Strait of Messina and had to choose which side to sail through. Sailing along Charybdis with its fatal waves would have meant the death of his entire crew. Odysseus’s dream of returning to Ithaca thus forced him to navigate along Scylla, accepting the loss of only part of his crew. Even today, it is said that when one finds oneself "between Scylla and Charybdis," one is faced with two equally bad alternatives.

Finally, we arrive in Reggio Calabria in the early evening, the secret capital of Calabria.