Messina, Italy

Our first port was Messina, Italy on the island of Sicily.  Many people had excursions to go to Taormina and see the volcano Mt. Etna but we were trying to do the cruise as cheap as possible so no excursions for us. Plus, we enjoyed figuring our way around the cities and doing what we wanted.  

 View from the boat

 The Clock tower and church that is famous for doing a 15 minute bell tower show.  Imagine a huge crowd of people, heads tilted upwards, holding recording camcorders as bell rings and a lion roars slowly, followed by a bronze rooster crowing.  It was a bit slow..and comical. Not mocking the bell tower because it was cool for how old it was, but really...are you really going to go home and show everyone this 15 minute show of a bell being rung by a statue.  I came home and described it so I suppose I'm almost as guilty.

 The bishop/preist (?) waiting for someone to come confess.  It was really odd to me all these touristy chapels that were working churches. Personally I wouldn't enjoy a bunch of tourists walking around taking pictures while I was trying to worship.

 so much character!

 We got some Gelato. No disappointment here, it was AMAZING!

We walked into some random building that I think was a theatre of some sort. No other tourists were there but three workers were excited to show us inside. We walked into the theatre and the ceiling was painting with a bunch of naked mermaids, or really I don't remember except they were not clothed. Made for an awkward moment when we were trying to get out of there but not able to explain in his language...

We walked around the city a bit more and then headed back to the boat

to do some "reading."

 

Before dinner we went ice skating at the rink.  It was fun watching people that had never skated before. Two girls got stuck out in the middle of the ice and afraid to move so we helped them around and had a good time laughing.  Then went to dinner. I could get used to the whole not having to make or clean up dinner!! We were so spoiled!