Italy's sleeper from Milan to Sicily ends with a rare rail-ferry crossing that's threatened by a new mega bridge.

Our ferry cuts through the roiling waters of the Strait of Messina under clouds that blanket all but the hems of Sicily's distant mountains. The sea passage to the Italian island doesn't want for drama. It's governed by tidal currents so strong they inspired Scylla and Charybdis, the sea monsters in Homer's Odyssey, and is overseen by a golden statue of the Madonna at the end of Messina Harbour, arm raised in blessing. But my eye is drawn to a stranger sight: the train carriages travelling across the sea on the ferry itself.

This is unique cargo. The narrow strait is the only place in Europe where passenger trains still travel by sea. Every morning, passengers aboard the Intercity Notte follow the same ritual: watching the train split in the southern Italian city of Villa San Giovanni, get shunted onto the ferry’s tracks and carried across to the city of Messina before being reassembled for the final run to Palermo or Syracuse.

"It is a small engineering choreography that keeps two shores and two worlds together every day: students, workers, families returning home, strait commuters, tourists who choose the slow pace of the night train," Francesca Serra, director of Intercity operations at national operator Trenitalia, tells me.

But this choreography connecting land and sea may soon come to an end.

In August, the Italian government revived long-standing plans to build a vast €13.5bn (£11.7bn) suspension bridge over the strait – one of the world's most ambitious engineering projects. Supporters see it as progress, while critics warn it could drain resources from southern Italy's more urgent infrastructure needs. Whether or not it's ever built, the proposal has cast a shadow over one of Europe's most poetic journeys and the sense of ritual and connection it represents.

When I travelled on the Intercity Notte in February 2025, none of this seemed particularly urgent. The bridge plan was still languishing in political limbo and the sea crossing felt like an evocative journey that would surely always exist. This was the backbone of an overland trip my partner and I were taking from Nottingham to Sicily, and we wound our way down through France and Turin before arriving at the grand Milano Centrale. From here, the overnight journey to Syracuse in Sicily – Italy's longest sleeper service – promised something special: a 1,489km passage through the length of Italy, linking mainland and island.

Our train left at 19:40 and night was closing in as we rattled down the coast, passing bright constellations of Cinque Terre towns. Compartment doors left open offered glimpses of life along the aisle: families playing cards, an old man with a cup of wine, a couple and their handsome Italian greyhound. I drifted asleep, stirred occasionally by melodic Tannoy announcements from dark platforms washed in orange light.

Around 07:00, I was woken by a knock at the door and, scrambling for my glasses, found the carriage attendant waiting patiently with a shot of espresso. A breakfast tray of juice, croissant, dry biscuits and apricot spread followed. Calabrian towns began their days beneath pale skies, which took on a moodier complexion over the Tyrrhenian Sea, flecked with lightning. We came into the salt-licked station of Villa San Giovanni just in time to see Intercity day train returning from Sicily snake out of the ferry's open........

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