Messina Sicily

  Messina, Sicily, Italy
Monday, October 20, 2008

Hello from the straights of Messina, where we are currently sailing from Messina to Barcelona, SpainToday we got to spend the day in Messina, Sicily. Sicily is an island off the coast of Italy (you can actually see mainland Italy from Messina). The tour that we had booked for today was "Mt. Etna". Mt. Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe (3,329m). Mt. Etna is also one of the most active volcanos in the world, with a minor eruption almost every year, and a large explosion on average every 10 years.The bus ride is pretty long, about 70km from Messina, the roads are extremely twisty and the bus trip took about two hours to get there. Once we got there, we got to have about an hour walking around on the volcano surfaces. We were at the south crater, which was caused during the 2001 eruption.We took an extremely high walk on volcanic rocks, the climb up was incredibly hard, but the view from the top was well worth it. The views where amazing, at 1900m. It was pretty cold, but a nice view. I would have preferred if we could have stayed a little longer, but the tour just did not allow the time.It was amazing to be at the top of the crater, it was so incredibly silent and desolate, just this huge black expanse of rock and lava flows! Amazing!! Awe Inspiring!Mt Etna - Amazing Views!


Once we got back into Messina, we decided we would try walk around for awhile, yeh well, this lasted about 30 minutes. The Italians believe in siesta, just like the Mexicans, however the Italians take siesta for 3 hours at a time, there was just nothing to do in Messina, all the shops and restaurants where closed, the roads where empty, the whole place looked like a deserted city!We had a very unique experience, in managing to witness an active volcano being grumpy! At around 7:45pm tonight, we sailed past a volcano named Stromboli, where we managed to see her spewing lava into the air. It was extremely dark, and all we could make out was the mouth of the volcano high in the air, but she was incredibly kind and gave us two little explosions into the dark night sky! Beautiful!Lucky Shot - Stromboli giving us a little show!
Tomorrow is another Sea day, the 3rd and final sea day, and we have managed to organize a visit with the captain to the bridge, which does not happen very often at all, very excited by that! Pictures will most likely not be allowed, but getting to see the bridge will be good enough!Anyway, its time for bed now, as we are sailing to Barcelona, I think tomorrow I will post some of the very "intelligent" questions and things I have heard on this boat, some of them deserve 10/10 for stupidity!