Messina (Sicily)

Monday - This morning, we arrived in Messina located between Sicily and mainland Italy. We have an all-day bus tour scheduled with some free time in the middle for lunch.

Earlier, a subset of us met up for coffee and breakfast at Two70 located at the stern overlooking the water. A pretty nice location for breakfast. 

We stopped at a roadside rest stop for a bit for a bio break. It’s a two hour ride to our first stop, Mt Etna. 

It was a narrow, curvy road up to 6,100’ on the side of the volcano. 

At the stop, we were able to walk up to craters with recent activity. 

When we arrived, the clouds opened up a bit showing more of the surrounding landscape. 

This is one of the craters that you could walk into. The ground was all packed ash and lava but walking wasn’t difficult though you did need to watch your step. 

We then went to the Greek Theater in Taormina. We heard the history from when the Greeks built it and the changes when the Romans politicized it. 

From the back of the theater, there was a wonderful view of the town and the beach. 

Well?

Sunday - Another high stress day. We filled out our Royal Caribbean “Health status” questionnaire and reported that I had two of the symptoms listed. Basically, a cold. We’ll see if that gets us dumped to the do-not-allow list. I don’t think I’ll be able to relax until we are onboard.

The included hotel breakfast was decent and included cappuccino, so no complaints. All of the breakfasts in Italy really focus on sweet offerings. The savory options seem limited to eggs and floppy bacon. 

Checkout time is 11am and our overpriced shuttle to the ship is scheduled for 11:30. 

Later - It turns out that the “Health check” wasn’t very stringent. They asked us a couple of questions and a supervisor came by and said no problem. We were on the ship by noon. Way less stress for me at this point. We are on Odyssey of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, on a 7 day Greek Isles and Italy cruise. This trip was organized by two RV YouTube channels, Less Junk More Journey and Finding Our Someday. 

We ran into a couple of the cruise organizers and they mentioned that we could drop our stuff off at the conference room they were setting up for distribution of packets. We then had a light lunch at the buffet before going back, picking up our packets which includes tickets for all of the excursions. 

Travel Day to Civitavecchia

Saturday - That name is a mouthful. We took the public transit bus to the train station, with plenty of time to catch our first train to Pisa. After boarding the train, Bridget got an email saying it was cancelled. We got off the train and sought out customer service who told us to go to another platform and get on that train. The electric status board on the train wasn’t displaying the expected information. Being clueless, I asked the person I was sitting next to and found out that we were  headed towards Pisa just later than planned.

We missed our connection to Civitavecchia, so we waited in line to talk to an agent and verified that we just needed to wait for the next train.  The train wasn’t crowded at all compared to the one from Florence. Maybe because it’s Saturday afternoon. I’m not complaining. The train was traveling at around 160 mph between stops. Smooth and quiet. We arrived a couple of hours later than planned. 

Later - We arrived at our hotel, which was only a short walk from the train station, around 5pm. It is an old building but has some real oddities. Such as, our room has two floors. The bedroom is up a flight of stairs. And the mini split made a horrendous noise when first powered on. But it was set for 16°C and dripped a lot of water initially. Maybe there was ice built up. Anyway, it’s working fine now.

We had dinner at a bistro with outdoor seating. Again, my main complaint is all the cigarette smoke. I have gotten really used to no smoking in most businesses in the U.S..

Florence Rest Day - Day 4

Friday - Today was a rest & recuperation day. Bridget was concerned about my cough and had a doctor come by the hotel room. I guess house calls are still the norm around here. He said I had bronchitis, not contagious, but aggravated by all the smoke in the narrow streets, restaurants, and shops. He prescribed some antibiotics and something for my cough. 

Not that I’m getting tired of Italian food, but yesterday, I had a burger and roasted potatoes. Today, we had dinner at a Thai fusion place and I had the ramen and gyoza. The chicken was dry and addition of tomatoes made it “fusion” but it was decent. 

Tomorrow, we catch a couple of trains to Civitavecchia, Rome’s seaport. There is a very short stop in Pisa and we need to switch trains there.