November 6th – At Sea and November 7th - Messina

At Sea

We had a couple of ‘sea days’ aboard ship, where we were en route to our next stop.  The leg between Santorini and Messina in Sicily was probably the most exciting.  The weather in Santorini had been gorgeous – blue skies, 70+ degrees, etc.  But between Santorini and Messina during the night before our arrival in Messina, we encountered a bit of a storm.  According to the Captain, the storm included rain and winds gusting to 70 knots [80mph].  This caused a good deal of rolling, even in a ship as large as the Queen Elizabeth, to the point where our sleep was interrupted by the motion.  Our cabin was on the highest level, eight decks above the main deck, magnifying any rolls the ship took.  (There were crews scraping salt off of windows and then cleaning them, when we went to the dining room for breakfast, and our outside seating area was sticky with salt.)  We got up late, a bit bleary-eyed, the next morning – it was a good thing we had decided to explore on our own.

Messina

Mosaic map of city donated by local
 Rotary Club as its centennial project

Messina is just across the Straits of Messina from Italy.  It has been an important port for centuries

Messina & harbor with Madonnina (135' pillar with
 30' statue of Virgin Mary) on opposite point 

on an island that has been ruled and fought over for literally millennia.  That being said, while we enjoyed exploring the town, looking at churches and other old buildings, we did not find Messina to be a very interesting place for simply wandering around.  It has wide streets, low-built houses, and large new buildings – quite a change from the sites we’ve become accustomed to on this trip.  Why?  Mostly because of a great earthquake in 1908.  About 2/3 of the city’s population (60-80,000 people!) died in the quake, and gone were the narrow streets and lofty houses.  Then the air-raids of 1943

Duomo (Cathedral) with campanile with one
of the largest clocks in the world - showing
astronomical faces

reduced much of the reconstruction to rubble and killed another 5,000 or so inhabitants.  So, now the city is modern in appearance with lots of trees and flowers and mini-parks.  Attractive and easy to navigate on foot, but not very interesting from a history standpoint.

We did have an interesting lunch off the beaten path in a sidewalk café called the American Bar where no one spoke much English, but everyone was cordial, and we all managed to communicate by various means.  We seemed to be the only tourists there which is what we prefer.  Anna went in to order our desserts from the

Anna in front of fountain

ample pastry selections in a refrigerated case (delicious!), and was greeted by our waitress who introduced the person on the staff who spoke English.  When Anna greeted him in slow, simple phrases, he got a panicked look on his face.  Poor guy – he didn’t know he would have an oral exam that day!  So, no American English spoken in the American Bar, but we still had a good time.