Crossing the Straits of Messina on Europe’s Last Passenger Train Ferry

The train rolls aboard these tracks on the inside of a ferry boat. Photo by Vincent Gragnani.

The crucial moment in one of the world’s most peculiar train rides comes when the sleeper from Palermo grinds into Messina each evening and, after a series of jolts and groans, eases into the bowels of a large white ferry. Minutes later, as the ferry leaves port with the carriages on board, passengers tumble out of their bunks, drop into the hold of the ship, head round the back of the train and up to the bar where they order an arancino and watch Sicily receding as the lights of the Italian mainland approach.

— Tom Kington, writing for The Guardian in 2012.

Making the same crossing a decade later, I didn’t just hear and feel of series of jolts and groans — I watched from the front of a train car just after midnight as we rolled forward onto the port side of ferry, stopped, detached from the cars in front of us, rolled backward and then forward again, this time veering onto tracks that ran along the starboard side of the ferry.

I held my phone against the front windows to record the process, until I was reprimanded with a waving finger to stop recording.

Once fully on the boat, however, no one tumbled out of their bunks and up to the bar as I was hoping.

I was sleep deprived and congested, but I had to experience this even if no one else on the train was joining me. It is not only a unique experience, but also a dying one, as this is the last remaining passenger train ferry in Europe.

I stepped out of my train car in eerie solitude and walked up two flights of stairs onto a deck. I found no crowds and no bar, just a mostly empty deck. I stopped a man whom I thought to be an employee of the ferry to ask him where I could go and whether I might be left behind once we reached Calabria.

There may or may not be an announcement to reboard the train, he said, but it will be “evident” when we reach the other side that it would be time to reboard. The most important thing, he said, was to know how to get back to my train car, as the ferry could be disorienting.

The decks were mostly empty for this post-midnight crossing of the Straits of Messina. Photo by Vincent Gragnani.

I did as he suggested, retracing my steps so I knew which of the many staircases would lead me back to Car number 6. I then ran back up the stairs, this time to the top deck, where I could see that our boat was surrounded by the harbor of Messina. There I met the same helpful traveler — not an employee, it turned out — who had given me my initial pointers, and we spent much of the crossing in conversation.

He was a native of Sicily who had made this trip many, many times, often in the daytime. Having lived in Atlanta for a year, his English was perfect. He was currently living in Brussels, not having much love for the Italian government and its prioritizing of cars and planes over more sustainable rail travel. I had to remind him Italy was still far ahead of the United States in this area.

As the ferry pulled out of Messina, we passed the monument to Our Lady of the Letter, the city’s patron, commemorating the belief that the Virgin Mary sent the residents of Messina a letter in the year 42. The Latin inscription at the base of the 7-meter tall monument reads “Vos Et Ipsam Civitatem Benedicimus,” or, “We bless you and your city.”

“Vos et ipsam civitatem benedicimus” translates from Latin to “We bless you and your city,” believed to be the last line of a letter from Mary, Mother of Jesus, to the people of Messina. Photo by Vincent Gragnani.

It was nearly impossible for me to know which lights were from Messina and which from Calabria, as we seemed to be fully surrounded by land. To make matters more confusing, the boat turned around in the middle of the crossing, so that the back of the boat became the front. My helpful friend pointed out a green light on the shore of Calabria that would mark our landing point.

As we approached that green light, my friend headed for the vending machines, and I took that as my cue to get back on the train. Being a minute late and locked off the train was highly improbable — but the thought still worried my anxious mind.

Several staircases lead from the train deck of the ferry to the upper decks. Photo by Vincent Gragnani.

Though I had earlier retraced my steps to the train car, I was in fact disoriented by the turning of the boat, but I quickly found my way back to my train car, back to my cabin. I climbed to the top bunk for a bird’s eye view of the ferry as we rolled off onto the mainland of Italy.

The entire crossing took about an hour, and it was much less eventful than I was hoping.

The train then sat in Calabria for more than a half hour, perhaps an hour. Though I didn’t have a timetable, I was sure this was not normal, and that there was no way we would be arriving in Naples at the scheduled time of 7:45 am.

Thankfully, I was finally able to sleep, waking up once as we passed slowly through Sapri, just over the border of Campania from Basilicata. The next time I awoke, we were in Salerno, just south of Naples, seemingly on time. Soon I could see Mount Vesuvius as the train sped toward Naples, arriving on time.

That helpful passenger could complain about the de-prioritization of trains in Italy, but their system still runs efficiently, and affordably. A sleeper compartment on Amtrak often costs hundreds of dollars for a single night. Trenitalia’s sleeper cost €75 per person, and it was more than double the size of an Amtrak roomette. The fare also included complimentary bottled water at night, and a light breakfast in the morning.

Overnight rooms on Trenitalia are more spacious — and much less expensive — than Amtrak’s bedrooms. Photo by Vincent Gragnani.

Builders and speculators may be frustrated that plans to bridge the Straits of Messina have yet to materialize, but even if it wasn’t the convivial scene described in The Guardian ten years ago, I was still grateful to make that late-night crossing in such a unique way.

Approaching Naples, on time, with Mount Vesuvius in the background.