Our First Day in Italy

Our first night at sea was uneventful.....I was so "jet lagged" that all I wanted was my bed. Of course, both Mitch and I awoke pretty early in the morning. Mitch went for coffee, but I wanted to stay in bed for a bit longer. As I was lying there, I kept "feeling" like I should get up and look out the window......I finally listened and looked out and saw a volcano. There was steam rising from it's the top and at it's base, was a little village. I am so glad that I "listened" to the "voice" or I would have missed seeing it.

If I do say so myself, isn't living in a village at the base of a volcano kind of weird? I got to thinking, who in their right mind would do that? Aren't the people who live there scared or worried about an eruption, washing them into the sea in a river of hot lava? Ah well, to each his own!

Our first Port of Call was Messina (Sciliy) Italy. We left the ship and headed for a look at a few ancient churches. We stopped at one that had a huge carved copper door. Colored by time, it was an amazing shade of green (I think it is called, verdigris?). The church square had a beautiful clock tower, with a clock that had gold figures, that moved when the clock chimed the hour. We learned later on that we could have climbed to the top of the clock tower, Steve said the view was great from the top.

We hiked through the streets and up a huge hillside to another church. From the steps of this church, we had a view of the harbor, our ship, and of the rooftops of the city.
Our tour guide, from the day before, had told us of the traffic in Messina, and she wasn't kidding! I have never seen such traffic jams and heard such noise..honking from the trucks and cars, beeping from the scooters, and even the wail of a siren from a fire truck that just wanted to get through all the traffic!! As soon as it was past the traffic jam, the siren stopped..too funny.

We stopped for our first taste of gelato and enjoyed every lick of it....very creamy, and oh so yummy. The young woman that waited on us was so sweet and friendly, even though we couldn't understand her and she couldn't understand us. It is proof that a smile can make strangers become friends.