Jewel of the Seas: Taormina and Messina

This is a continuation of our port day for Messina, Italy on the Jewel of the Seas Greek Isles itinerary. After lunch in Castelmola we headed back to Taormina.

Taormina

Mario gave us maps of the historic area to walk through.

We decided to take an hour for all to navigate themselves on the mile walk from Porto Catania to Porto Messina.

By Giovanni Dall’Orto – Own work, Attribution, Link

I forgot to take a picture of porto Catania hence the photo above. The walk was very scenic but crowded because of a food festival that was being set up. In fact, we missed the public restrooms in this area because it was blocked with tables for the event.

The fountain above was at the square in front of the duomo.

I was surprised at the number of churches in such a close space (3 or 4). The sculpture below of St. Joseph is in the Church of San Giuseppe (or St. Joseph) which was built in the late 1600’s.

I loved the scenic balconies with their flowers.

It was too crowded to explore.

There were tons of shops, restaurants but we didn’t dawdle. I stopped at the information desk near the end and got directions to the closest public restrooms which were outside the gate.

While walking there we found another couple looking for a restroom so we walked there together. It was at the cable car building and cost 1/2 euro with no paper or soap. Yuck.

When we were walking back to the gate, we found Mario. I mentioned wanting a gelato and he advised us to go back in the gate and stop at the first gelatateria on the right as it was homemade.

It was fantastic. I had a scoop of pistachio (of course) and one of snickers.

Even shared with Steve when I got back to the van. One lady had purchased a nice leather purse in one of the shops.

We headed Back but stopped at an overlook before going back down the hill and OMG that sight was so beautiful.

It was hard to leave but alas we had to.

Mario took the highway back to Messina which was much quicker. Some of the group wanted to go right the ship (bathroom issue) so he dropped 6 off and then took the other four of us to the astronomical clock.

The fountain of Orion shown above is in the square in front of the Messina Duomo and bell tower. The bell towers has the world’s largest astronomical clock. After explaining each level of the tour, we told Mario we’d walk back to the ship from there (about two blocks at most). He kissed the women goodbye Italian style (once on each cheek).

We waited about 10 minutes for the clock to strike (every quarter hour) and took pictures of the fountain and church in the plaza.

The walk back was enjoyable. Once onboard, we dropped our stuff in our room and headed up to the windjammer as we’d miss our seating time (it was about 6:30 when we boarded).

Evening Onboard

Here is tonight’s MDR menu.

At the Windjammer I had sliced flank steak along with other offerings.

The lobster bisque was okay.

There was dessert too.

Before going back to the cabin, we took pictures of the city from the ship.

Click to enlarge for Panoramic view of Messina

This column with a statue of Madonnina protects the city and harbor.

We didn’t take part in any evening activities as we were both pretty worn out (I had over 13,00 steps on my activity app by this time). The bad news is that our toilet wouldn’t flush. We decided to deal with it in the morning.

The good news was this guy waiting for us.