Messina

Nighttime falls on our first excursion day and I find that sleeping on a cruise ship as it runs from port to port is indeed enjoyable. The humming of the engine lulls you to sleep and if there is a slight roll it just rocks you like a baby in a cradle.

Then here's another of the reasons that we really loved traveling through Europe on a cruise ship. Each dawn brings a new location. Like magic, you awaken with a new city and a new site to see. Fortunately we most always seemed to be on the dock side of the boat. On this particular morning, day two of our excursions, we awoke to this site of Messina, Sicily before the boat docked. This is a good shot of what the view looked like out of our room window. Remember I said we got a "deal" for taking an obstructed view room. Well, our window was approximately 5 feet by 6 feet (no small porthole here) and it never bothered me to have a lifeboat right outside.
From my studies of Messina I found that most of the city was destroyed during WW II and rebuilt so all the ancient buildings were pretty much gone. We found it to be just a nice city and with no particular place in mind that I just had to see while I was there, we slept late, met up with some fellow travelers and just walked the downtown streets. Aimlessly we went armed only with a city map and ultimately got kinda turned around and lost. We stumbled upon some pretty rough sections of the downtown and had it not been for our sheer numbers I might have felt ill at ease. Bums and hobos abounded and most of the people who looked like they belonged there were city workers on their way to jobs.

One thing that my husband wanted to make sure I got a picture of was the motorcycles along the street. It seems that they have super engines that we can't get in motorcycles in the states mainly because of environmental issues. All you motorcycle fanatics take note and enlarge the picture and you can see better what he's talking about.

I found the streets to be incredibly crowded with cars, motorcycles and buses. Motorcycles and small cars were parked anywhere and everywhere they would fit. I couldn't imagine anything larger than a smart car maneuvering through the traffic when I happened upon their means for supplying all the stores along these tight streets. Just take a small car and load it top to bottom like this one.

One of the highlights of Messina was an opportunity to taste my first gelato (Italian ice cream). I told the vendor that it was my first and he added the red waffle cookie to the top.

We didn't start our walk til about 9:00 or 10:00 and with all the wandering around I figured we would miss one of the only events that we needed to see in Messina, the clanging of the clock tower at noon but low and behold just down the street from the gelato store was the town square with the church and clock tower.

This was the Cathedral of Norman and the bell tower is a famous astronomical clock built in Strasbourg and moved here in 1933. It has a lion that roars, a rooster, and many Biblical figures that react to the chimes at noon. We were there just in time and it was well worth the wait.

Along with all the tourists to see this tower were bunches of street vendors with scarves to sell. They were only 5 Euros so here was the perfect souvenir of Messina and it kept me well within my budget as I picked up several for relatives and friends.

After noon, the crowd dispersed and we entered the cathedral, one of many in Europe. As my husband said, "you can't spit in Europe without hitting a cathedral". Upon entering I was flabergasted at the beautiful artwork. Paintings, statues, wood carvings, marble floors - you name it and all so reverent and beautiful.

But as we returned to the dock I took a photograph of a "Jane's Perspective" sort of thing. On the wall across the street front he boat dock were these enlarged pictures. Kinda neat, huh?

Back onboard, it's happy hour time, time for supper in the Grand ballroom and then straight to bed cause I was feeling a little woozy. Tell you why in the next blog.