Cruising Day 2 - Messina, Sicily, Italy

Cruising - Day 2 Sicily (Messina), Italy

An early start today as we head to the dining room for a cooked breakfast or cereal and fruit.  Today we have the first of our pre-booked tours to Mt Etna then back to the coastal village of Taormina.  A few quick snaps from the deck of the ship before we head down to the meeting point and are assigned our bus for the day.  

Many people opted for the various tours, ours being 7 hours.  Our tour guide is Italian and doesn’t speak fluent English.  In fact, after about 5 minutes I’m wondering how I’ll stand listening to him.  He starts a sentence then stops half way through then continues later.  Very difficult to follow!  His monotone irritates rather than informs. 

As we leave the port and travel through the town of Messina my first impression is of how dirty the town is.  Rubbish lines the street along with fallen pine needles from the many trees.  There are no road sweepers here!  Even this early, locals sit under the shade of the trees.

Our bus takes us through the Sicilian countryside, which is mountainous and rugged, towards the highest point on Sicily, Mt Etna, an active volcano which dominates the eastern coast at a height of 10,920 feet.  As we leave the city and enter the countryside the land changes to basalt effectively creating an island within an island.

On the way we encounter a major fire in an industrial building.  Ignoring the blaring sirens of the fire engines trying to pass us and the local police stopping traffic we continue winding our way upwards towards the mountain.

The Sicilian countryside is mainly agricultural land with citrus fruits, olives, vegetables and grapes as the main crops.  The lasting impression I have is of unkempt, neglected orchards with only the occasional tidy property.  Obviously weeding and mowing isn’t a regular occurrence here.  I think of my friends’ tidy properties and know they’d enjoy the lifestyle here.  As we travel higher up the mountainside the properties seem to be better tended.  Chestnut trees line the side of the road along with stone walls.  I can’t help but wonder if some of the lower orchards have been abandoned due to the ongoing volcanic activity.

Our bus stops for us to view the swathe of destruction caused by lava flow from Mt Etna.  It must have been spectacular watching but I wouldn’t like to have been as close as many of the properties were to the flow.  As the road narrows the bus begins a musical tooting before each corner, warning approaching drivers we are there.  Abandoned buildings dot the roadside at intervals. 

Mt Etna is now visible with steam rising lazily from one of its four active craters and we stop for photographs.  As we near the summit, the landscape changes into a barren volcanic wasteland.  The sight is both impressive and eerie.

We reach the summit and the bus parks and we disembark with 30 minutes before we need to meet back with the guide armed with a voucher for a cannoli, an Italian desert, and a drink.  The area is a tourist mecca with shops, pay toilets, cafes and loads of tourists.  It even has a gondola heading up the mountain following the track you can see in the picture.

As there are several walks around craters we take the shorter one thinking we don’t have enough time to do the higher one.  Or so we thought.  When we reconvene our guide takes us on a guided walk of the same crater most of us have just done!  Wouldn’t you know it?  Most of us are annoyed as we’d booked the strenuous tour that had warnings not to ascend above 2000m if you had heart conditions or high blood pressure.  We ask if we can do the steeper crater but he tells us we don’t have time. 

After buying postcards then having a gelato, cannoli, wine and several tastings of Lemoncelli (buying a bottle of Pistachio Creamoncelli) we board the bus for the trip back down the mountain.

On the way we pass more fires, this time burning on the roadside.  We’re not sure if these are controlled or wildfires.  As we reach the village and look back it appears that Sicily is burning as smoke from many fires drifts lazily seaward while Mt Etna puffs away in the background.

We arrive in Taormina around 2pm.  It’s a picturesque village 35 miles from Messina perched on high cliffs midway between Catania and Messina.  The town has a medieval atmosphere despite its Greek and Roman past.   It’s deathly hot by now and we have two hours to kill here.  We stroll the narrow cobblestone streets seeking shade but I'm pleased we made time to admire the breathtaking view from the village.

We stop at a fountain to refill our water bottles and seek refuge inside the nearby church.  The town is crowded with tourists which explains the expensive boutiques lining the main walkway.  The town is vehicle free though we did see a few driving around, drivers jumping out to move barriers so they could get into areas.  

There was so much to see – little alleyways and passageways leading to courtyards and fascinating tiny shops and numerous outdoor restaurants.  We didn't stop to eat due to the fact we would be having a three course dinner once we arrived back on board the ship.  After an age wandering aimlessly down steps, around corners, up alleys, up steps (probably the same ones again) I realised we were hopelessly lost and I had no idea where we were or how to get back.   Eventually we found our way out of the maze onto the main street again.  I discovered some amazing artwork and thought my artist friends would enjoy these works made from used art tools, squirted paint & empty tubes.  The second one is a picture painted onto the pallete with the original oils left around the edges and blending into the artwork so it appears to be part of the  picture, until you look closely.  It includes a brush used (uncleaned) & a paint lid.  I thought they were original and quirky.

We decided to sample another gelato due to the heat.  This allowed us to find a cool shop interior to sit in and rest our weary feet while we enjoyed the delicious cool taste.  We were to meet our group at the Post Office at 5pm so I used the opportunity to buy more postcards and send them off.   Unfortunately I’d left the ones I’d bought at Mt Etna in the bus so couldn’t send them from Sicily.  A postcard varied in price from 2 euros at the volcano to 75c at the village, down to 25c if you shopped around.  The further you went from the main street the cheaper they got.  Postage was 2 euro for each postcard so relatively expensive.

The icing on the cake was seeing a local wedding procession arriving at a flower filled church.  I'd earlier watched two men arrange bunches of gypsophila or babies breath around the outside of the church lining the exit, effectively forming a guard of honour.  I later found out it is native to the Mediterranean hence the abundance of it.  Then they placed paper cones of rice into receptacles for throwing after the ceremony.  What a romantic setting for a wedding on a hot summers day!  I could imagine the wine flowing freely afterwards with Al Fresco dining.

Due to the heat I was pleased to get back on the air-conditioned bus and resume our journey back to the port.  We arrived back at the ship only to have our alcohol confiscated!  This involved waiting in a slow moving queue then filling out numerous forms so we could have it returned to us before leaving.

After dinner I headed for the main show and caught the end of an amazing singer, Grazia Quaranta.  Then for laughs there was a 70’s Disco Inferno Street Party that we were all dancing at, followed by a 70’s After Party at the Dungeon Nightclub.

The teenagers had their own programme and space without adults so no idea what they got up to.  The sports court seemed to be the place of choosing for my son who quickly made a group of friends and was hardly seen, arriving back at the cabin around 2am most nights, even though there was a 1am curfew!