Messina, Sicily - Nov 2024

A walk around and bell tower performance - November 8, 2024

We stayed in Messina, walking around, and then watched the noon moving clock tower show at the Messina Cathedral in the Piazza Duomo. I was not too impressed with Messina, but really did want to come to see Sicily. It was very littered. We did not go to Taormina since we do not watch The White Lotus show. We talked to some people that went to Mt. Etna, which sounded cool, though they said that they found a lot of rain on the other side of the mountain. If you have wanted to see Sicily, be sure to well research what city you want to go to and if there is time to go on a cruise stop.  

The town hall, churches, and city pictures from the ship. 




  
There was a U.S. Navy ship in port docked right in front of us, which was interesting. 




Walking, we found these cool bird art painted in different colors. 




View from the church grounds. I liked these umbrella trees, as someone called them.  





I like pictures of other countries' mailboxes, so my mailbox picture. I wanted a Sicilian ball, an arancini, in Sicily. We got one, and I was not impressed. We had a good one in Trieste, Italy. 


There were beautiful churches in Messina. This one costs to go in. 



 


I liked this palm tree against this building; it looked very Mediterranean or rather North African to me. 


The performing clock/bell tower. It was neat, and the cathedral was very pretty. Look at that detail. There were many vendors in the square while people gathered for the noon show. The lady next to us kept getting approached. I went to her and said that we were going to stand further from them. They must have looked like sure buyers of scarves.  







The town hall that I was trying to photograph from the ship is very intricate and pretty too. 


For dinner, we had the MDR tonight. Travis had the ravioli with lobster sauce, and I had the Caesar salad. This used to be my favorite but is sort of disappointing now; maybe my taste has changed. 



Travis had the Hungarian goulash that he liked and I thought was pretty good too. I had the NY Strip steak from the everyday menu. 



For dessert, Travis had the strawberry shortcake, and I had some kind of chocolate cake. The icing was gelatinous that I did not like, so pulled it off. 



The moon, the wake, and some Italian city lights. We were surprised at how close Sicily was to mainland Italy.  


Next up...Naples to Pompeii, Sorrento, and the Amalfi Coast


Location: Messina, Metropolitan City of Messina, Italy

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Iceland and Greenland on the NCL Star - July 2023

Image
Flight and Reykjavik: July 10-11, 2023 We had a NCL booked Delta flight from DFW to Detroit, a 1:30 hour layover, before an overnight flight to Reykjavik, or rather Keflavik (KEF). This overnight flight was about 5 hours, so not much time to (try to) sleep. I think of Delta as being good, but I only had Sun Chips for breakfast. They did not promise breakfast, and I like Sun Chips, but for breakfast time? The dinner meal service was weak too; a cheese, fruit, and almond tray (Travis got) or chicken salad sandwich on a croissant (I got; though I don't like chicken salad). Travis's was missing the cheese, the main course. They happily got him another tray of the full meal. We traded some, and Travis let me eat some cheese on the croissant top. It was pretty good. We had loud kicking kids behind us, and a Mom and good kids, with her husband, to the right. My fault, I picked the back of the plane where there are more kids. Oddly, there was not a restroom in the back. Delta now provi...
Read more

Table of Contents

Image
Mexico City - CDMX - February 2025     1. Overview and Kickoff     2. Centro     3.  Teotihuacan pyramids tour     4.  Archaeology Museum, Castle, and Zoo     5.  Museo Soumaya and Cablebus ride     6.  Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Tlalpexco     7. Chocolate Museum and flight home Mediterranean Cruise from Trieste to Rome - November 2024     1. NCL Pearl Cruise - Prep     2. Florence     3. Trieste and Embarkation day        4. Koper, Slovenia Cave and Castle tour     5. Split, Croatia     6. Dubrovnik, Croatia     7. Kotor, Montenegro     8. Corfu, Greece     9. Katakolo, Greece    10. Messina, Sicily    11.  Naples to Pompeii, Sorrento, and the Amalfi Coast    12.  Staying on board for Livorno and Disembarkation    13. Rome - Day 1   ...
Read more

Iceland: NCL Star Embarkation

Image
NCL Star Embarkation - July 13, 2023 Cruise day! Because it is crazy, this cruise is exactly, to the day, 20 years after our very first cruise on the NCL Sun in Alaska.   Our guesthouse checkout was 10am, so we needed to move quickly. We were mostly packed up from the night before. We had some time to kill before our noon NCL check in. We also had about a 45 minute bus ride, which turned out to be longer. We planned a walk to visit the bird sanctuary again because it was near, and it had a bus stop near that we planned, knowing the time that the bus should stop. We got outside -- windy! Travis noted that he did get a wind advisory on is phone. Doh, our two beautiful days' weather in Iceland was over. Then I remembered all the bird poop on the trail, but there was a greenhouse that if we could get in, we could get out of the wind. Travis had the big suitcase so rolled, but I had the smaller one so carried through the bird mess. We were able to get into the greenhouse, so looked...
Read more