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Bronze A, the head with its curly beard and the shoulder

Photo: Luca Galli, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Museum visits · Reggio Calabria · Italy

The Riace Bronzes at the Museum of Reggio Calabria

the two bronze warriors recovered from the sea in 1972 off the Ionian coast, at the end of a museum that tells the story of Magna Graecia from the Grotta del Romito to the Porticello heads

two hoursDuration

10 euros, 5 from 18:00, 2 from 18 to 25, free under 18Price

all year, in summer on Friday eveningsWhen to go

Take me there

In August 1972 a diver, Stefano Mariottini, found on the seabed, eight metres down off Riace Marina, on the Ionian coast of Calabria, two bronze statues: two naked warriors almost two metres tall, cast by the lost wax method in the fifth century BC, with eyes of calcite and glass paste and details in copper and silver: the Riace Bronzes. Who they were, athletes, heroes or gods, nobody knows, and the earth left inside them says that one was cast in Attica and the other in the Argolid. After restoration in Reggio and in Florence they stand in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Reggio Calabria, the National Archaeological Museum, Marcello Piacentini's building on the seafront, in a hall you enter in small groups, after a pause in a filter room that protects the climate. But the Bronzes are the end of the tour: the museum begins two floors up, with the prehistory of Calabria, and comes down through the cities of Magna Graecia, Locri, Kaulonia, Medma, Rhegion, to the hall of the warriors and the Porticello heads. From Scilla you get there by train, and in summer it is best to go in the late afternoon, after the beach: from 18:00 the ticket costs half, and in the summer of 2026 the museum stayed open on Friday evenings.

Getting there

The museum is in the centre, on the seafront, and has no car park of its own: the motorhome stays in Scilla and you go by train.

By train from Scilla: the regional trains of the Tyrrhenian line reach Reggio Calabria Lido in between twenty-two and thirty-eight minutes, and cost 2.70 euros. With the October 2026 timetable there were twenty-two direct trains on weekdays, from 6:28 to 21:46, and only eight on Sundays and public holidays; for the return on Sundays the last regional train from Lido left at 18:01. The summer timetable comes out in June and needs checking
On foot from the station: get off at Reggio Calabria Lido, and the museum writes that it is two minutes away: cross piazza Indipendenza and take via Vollaro, with the entrance on the left, in piazza De Nava
By motorhome: leave the A2 motorway at Reggio Calabria Porto and follow viale Genoese Zerbi as far as piazza Indipendenza. The museum points only to the paid parking in the surrounding streets, on the viale and on the seafront, and says nothing about motorhomes; Reggio has no motorhome area. Travellers leave the motorhome in the free car park in via Vincenzo Florio, six hundred metres from the museum, which on weekdays, however, fills up from 7:30 with people taking the hydrofoil to Messina, and has narrow bays: over six and a half metres it is a struggle
From the hydrofoil port, for those arriving from Messina, it is about ten minutes on foot

Practical information

The ticket is bought at the ticket office or online, and there is no need to book; entry is until 19:30.

Duration the museum says an hour and a half in its frequently asked questions and about two hours in its rules. The route begins on the second floor, level A, and comes down to the ground floor, where the Bronzes are: anyone short of time should not skip the hall of the warriors, because it is the last one

Price 10 euros, 5 from 18:00, 2 from 18 to 25, free under 18

When to go all year, in summer on Friday evenings

Suitable for everyone. There is a ramp at the entrance, lifts to every level and a video guide in sign language; young people under 14 enter only when accompanied. Dogs enter only if small, in your arms or in a carrier, and with a muzzle to hand; guide dogs always

Booking not needed for those going on their own; the museum recommends it in summer and on event days, to avoid queuing. The ticket can be bought online on CoopCulture. On the first Sunday of the month entry is free without booking, as long as there is room

Contacts

museoarcheologicoreggiocalabria.cultura.gov.it

man-rc@cultura.gov.it

06 399 676 00

Where it is

Reggio Calabria · Calabria

38.114642, 15.651148

You set off from

Scilla

22 km

20minutes

Notes

Opening hours, read on 14 October 2026: Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 to 20:00, with last entry at 19:30; on Mondays it is closed. The museum does not state its Christmas and New Year closures. The information and ticket number has the Rome area code; the museum offices answer on 0965 613988. In summer, in 2026, from 3 July to 14 September it stayed open in the evening every Friday, with concerts, talks and meetings included in the 5 euro ticket, and it also opened on five Mondays, 17, 24 and 31 August, 7 and 14 September, from 10:00 to 14:00. What time it closes on summer evenings the evening openings page does not say; the opening hours page speaks of a ticket office open until 22:30 on long days
Tickets, with the price list in force since 1 July 2024: 10 euros, 2 euros from 18 to 25, free under 18. The Slim ticket, at 5 euros, is valid from 18:00 until closing: in summer, after a day at the beach, it is the easiest way to see the museum. The one-year pass costs 22 euros, and there is a Calabria Cultura Pass that links the museum to other museums and parks in the region with a 20% discount. A ticket gives entry once only
The hall of the Bronzes is on the ground floor, and it is the end of the route. You go in in small groups, after a short pause in a filter room that keeps the climate of the hall constant: if there are people, you wait a little. The two warriors stand on anti-seismic marble bases. Bronze A, the young one, has curly hair and beard, both eyes intact and parted lips; Bronze B, the old one, has a head elongated for a helmet that is no longer there. The shield and the spear they must have held have been lost
How they were found: the museum writes that the diver Stefano Mariottini found them in August 1972 at Riace Marina, eight metres down. Wikipedia adds the day, 16 August, the spot, the reef of Porto Forticchio two hundred metres from the shore, and that they were brought up on 21 and 22 August; the depth, in recollections and in the official reports, ranges from six to ten metres. Then came the restorations, in Reggio and in Florence, where in 1980 they were shown for the first time, and again in Reggio, the last one until December 2013
The Porticello heads are in the same hall: they come from a ship that sank in the Strait between the fifth and fourth centuries BC, discovered in 1969. The Head of the Philosopher, an old man with a long beard, is for the museum a rare example of an ancient portrait; the Basel Head was stolen just after the discovery, sold to a museum in Basel and then returned
The rest of the museum, from top to bottom. Level A is the prehistory of Calabria, with the cast of the bull engraved in the Grotta del Romito, from the Palaeolithic, and the tombs of Torre Galli. Level B is the cities and sanctuaries of Magna Graecia: the Dioscuri of Locri, the two marble twins dismounting from their horses, held up by a triton, the Horseman of Casa Marafioti, in terracotta, the marble head of the Apollo Alaios of Cirò, the Chalcidian helmet from Vibo. Level C, a mezzanine, is everyday life and the necropolises, with the pinakes of Locri, the small votive terracotta plaques offered to Persephone, the bronze mirrors and the gold glass bowl from Tresilico. Level D is Reggio, the Rhegion of the Greeks and the Regium Iulii of the Romans, with the Kouros of Rhegion, then the hall of the Bronzes. On level E, below, are the Hellenistic necropolis found in 1932 while digging the foundations of the building, and the exhibitions
What there is and what there is not: the cloakroom is free, and rucksacks, umbrellas, sticks and helmets are left there; at the entrance you go through a metal detector. In the halls you may carry only a half-litre bottle of water, and no eating. You may take photographs for yourself, without flash, tripods or selfie sticks. The museum does not list a bar among its services. The toilets are for ticket holders
The building was designed by Marcello Piacentini in the 1930s: it opened in part in 1954, was inaugurated in 1959, closed for works in 2009 and reopened renovated in 2016. On the facade are the medallions with the coins of the cities of Magna Graecia, inside a covered piazza and at the top a terrace over the Strait. Until 10 December 2026 the facades are being restored, one at a time, without closing the museum
The Lungomare Falcomatà begins in front of the museum: a promenade of about one kilometre and seven hundred metres as far as piazza Garibaldi, with Art Nouveau buildings, the remains of the Greek walls and the Roman baths, and Sicily opposite. They call it the most beautiful kilometre in Italy, with a phrase attributed to D'Annunzio which, according to the historian Agazio Trombetta, D'Annunzio never wrote