Monday morning, we arrived in Messina. Messina is a port town on the island of Sicily. Although it was a lovely town, our destination and sightseeing excursion was actually to Taormina, a small town on the east coast of Sicily.
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| Each morning we had an excursion planned, we would assemble in the theater to find out which bus we would depart on from the ship. How's that for a theater on a ship? They had great shows too! |
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| Our first glimpse of Messina from our balcony. |
After a 45 minute bus ride, we arrived in the beautiful little town of Taormina. It was very quaint, and you could tell it was very popular with tourists as it was quite crowded.
We visited the Greek theater. Not only was the size impressive, but it had terrific views. Can you believe it was built in the 3rd century BC?!?
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| Mt. Etna is in the distance at the right....just pretend you can see it. More on that below. :) |
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| The view from behind the Greek theater. |
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| The symbol of Sicily is the Triskelion. |
The Isola Bella beach was recommended by a friend in Brussels. It was beautiful on this very hot day. We wished we had shoes that could be worn in the water as the beach was very rocky. Thanks to Dad for carrying the kids back to the towel.
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| What you can't see in this picture is the blood dripping from Chris's hand because he cut it on one of the rocks mentioned above. |
After the beach, we rode the cable car up to the main part of town where we started. At this point we were getting stressed. It was getting close to the time we needed to be back at the bus. What would one do if they missed the transport back to the ship? Or missed the ship?? We didn't want to find out. So, there was much hurrying down the streets of Taormina.
From this point, you can view Mt. Etna to the right. But of course, it was far too hazy for us to see. That is right in line with the hills from The Sound of Music tour that were too cloudy to see and a total white-out at the top of Jungrau in Switzerland. It is really our luck!
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| Gelato...of course! Good thing we had time! |
We arrived back at the ship in the late afternoon and set sail for our next destination. What a great day!
Until next time,
Wendy
