Taormina & Mt. Etna - Friday, June 19

We landed our ship in Messina, Sicily this morning and offloaded 7 am for a tour of Taormina - a Sicilian city that does not even open until 9 am.  We basically had the place to ourselves as we were the first tour bus to arrive.  We did miss Russell Crowe who was here last week.  Oh well.  Taormina is a quaint hill town on the SE side of Sicily.  And for the record, the Sicilian people do NOT consider themselves Italian.  No, they are Sicilian!  

We spent some time looking at the architecture, the theater, and the bakeries - oooh, the bakeries!  Beautiful views of the ocean as well as Mt. Etna.

Paul, the apostle from the Bible, was here as was the Virgin Mary.  The port even had a statue of Mary and her blessing for the city posted in the harbor.  Needless to say, Christianity is wide-spread here.  Although the Orthodox Jews and the Muslims also built temples here, they were destroyed by the Christians and the island has been Christian ever since the 1100’s.  Man, what history!

By far, this was voted as our favorite stop.  But we still have two more to go so the jury is still out.

We left Taormina and drove up to the top of Mt. Etna at 11k feet - and yes, it is still “smoking.”  We saw the remains of the eruption in 1992 and got to enjoy a typical Sicilian meal at the peak.  While there was tons to do up there, we did not get to spend a lot of time enjoying all the activities like 4-wheelers, Jeep rentals, gondola rides, and hiking.  I guess we just have to come back to experience it all!

We returned to the ship for an evening meal at one of the bars.  Then Andy, Austin, and I played three games of darts.  Who won all three games?  Glad you asked, yours truly!  Wasn’t even close.  Then we moved up one deck and played cards at another bar.  Austin and Pa Bill beat Sandy and Andy.  Pa Bill left, so I sat in.  Austin and I beat those siblings in two hands 52 to -8 as I shot the moon.  It was just my night.

We stop at Pompei tomorrow and then disembark in Rome on Sunday.  Trip has gone fast.  Enjoy some photos…

The sun coming up this morning over Italy

The port of Messina - where the distance between Italy and Sicily is 1.9 mi

The port city of Messina, Sicily

Grandma Barb sitting at a street cafe in Taormina, Sicily

Playing darts - where Andy and Austin were both Losers!

Mt. Etna up close


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