Day 10 - Sunday April 23, 2023 - Messina, Sicily, Italy

By Ellen Outten

 


Entering the Straight of Messina
You can see land on each side.  On the left is mainland Italy.  To the right is Sicily, the toe of the boot.

Entering the harbor and rounding the point, with the statute, to enter the docking area

Pictures from the boat as we docked at Messina

We took the "included" tour, Messina and It's Treasures.  This included a bus tour of Messina, which doesn't appear to be very big.  There wasn't much to tour but we did stop along the sea to look at mainland Italy.  The strait of Messina is where the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Ioanian Sea meet. No bridge has ever been built across to the mainland, although promised for many years.  The current is swift through here and known for whirlpools.






We stopped for a break in a local neighborhood.  Wayne and I walked down the street and took pictures of the local produce market.   Then, walked the other way to the Patisserie for a real Italian cannoli.  




My cannoli.  Wayne did get a taste

Many of the next pictures are of the neighborhoods we passed through.
Neptune with his trident




Our last stop was at the Basilica Cathedral di Santa Maria Assunta.  It's a beautiful church with an exquisite bell tower.  At noon each day, all of these mechanical movements, move.  The rooster crows and the bells chime.  It's quite something to see.  It was built in Norman times and consecrated in 1197.  It has been damaged and rebuilt several times.  In 1783 it was damaged by an earthquake and again in 1908 destroyed by another earthquake leaving its outer walls only.  It's the largest mechanical clock in Europe.





The church was destroyed by fire, due to bombing in 1943 during WWII.  It reopened in 1947 and Pope Pius XII honored it with the title of Minor Basilica.

We left the group tour at the church and instead of going back to the ship with them, we walked around and I did a small amount of souvenir shopping.  We stopped and had lunch on our own to try out the local flavors.  I had Pasta with Fruitti di Mare.  Clams, mussels, cuttlefish, escargot and shrimp.  No one at the restaurant spoke english.  We had some technology help from my cell phone translation skills.  Wayne just asked for Vino and Bier.  We got our message across.


My Pasta Frutti di Mare and Wayn's Pasta with Mussels







It was a short walk back to the ship from there.   All in all, a quiet Sunday which we probably both needed.  Only 3,400 steps so far.  But it's 2:30 in the afternoon.









Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 24, 2023 at 8:57 AM

    The food looks delicious! And the cannoli 😋

    ReplyDelete

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