Sicily Today!

Chloe at the Greek Theater (nearly 3000 yrs. old) at Taormina, Sicily, Italy

Sicily

After everyone woke up, we went out to breakfast.  As we looked out on Messini, we saw a large cathedral.  We didn’t have anything planned for today so we decided to wing it.  We went to ask some questions at the tour desk about where we should go and she recommended a tour up to a medieval, walled-village outside of Messina, Taormina.   We eventually signed up for that but we had to wait until 1:00 p.m., so we determined to walk up the hill to the cathedral with the beautiful facade called Cristo Re church.  As we went up, so did the temperature. To our surprise, inside it was an art gallery.  We could look down to a bottom level and see a casket of some sort, much like in Westminster Abbey, with the statue of the person lying at rest on the top.  It was a knight.  We walked around the outside until we found the door to the bottom level and went inside.  We found that it was a war memorial; and instead of a knight, it was a World War II soldier.

We had some extra time before our tour and saw another church we wished to enter.  We walked across the hill to it and while Anneke and Papa waited outside, Nonny and Chloe went inside the most different church we had been in.  Sicily was invaded many times by many different people.  One of those groups was  the Normans. They built many churches and buildings.  Inside the church we saw small and intricate paintings on the roofs and beams. It reminded Chloe of the Normans’ art. As we were leaving we saw a sign that the church was built in 1294, 715 years ago.

Anneke decided not to go on a tour in the afternoon, and Papa had to stay with her, so we got a refund on their tickets.  Nonny and Chloe took the one-hour bus ride to the mideval town of Taormina. It was a beautiful drive along the coast and although the maneuvering was scary in a bus, we loved the views.  When we got there our tour guide walked us past several churches and through three squares.  He showed us one restaurant where the entrance was about a foot wide.  We went up to Greek amphitheatre and after a human jam, we went inside.  While Nonny sat on the stone benches, Chloe wandered around the top taking many pictures, being more excited about these ruins than the ones in Verona.  When Chloe was ready to go, she met up and Nonny who told Chloe that as she was wandering. she had seen our tour guide giving information to the rest of our tour. We had not heard him say to wait and missed some info. but  we got more time to see the theatre.  On our way back we bought some gelato, oranges, and we tried a cannoli; but he gave us mango filling and we thought it was odd .  We met at our meeting spot and headed for the bus.  Once on the cruise ship again, we found that Anneke and Papa had spent the day relaxing in the room. 

We were going to pass the most active volcano in Europe, Stromboli, after dinner and went out into the wind to get a view. We waited for forever and we saw two spurts and a red glow.  It was very exciting after waiting so long in the cold.  Papa believes we were some of the only ones to have gotten any actual photos of the eruption, since we had played with camera settings for awhile in anticipation of the event..   We came back to the room and collapsed.