The Cruisin Cabes: Part 5

Day 6: Sicily

By this day, we were pretty tired, and would have loved to just stay on the boat.  But, we didn't know when we would be back in Sicily, so we decided to take advantage of our last day in Italy!  We let Jacob get a good morning nap in, and then set out.  There were only a few things I had read about in Messina.  Not much of a tourist destination, to say the least.  I did want to see the Cathedral in Messina, home to one of the largest astronomical clocks in the world.  Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the name, and thought I had written it down, but hadn't.  We had maps of the town, but were wandering around aimlessly.  We decided to give up and head to the shopping district, because my other goal for Sicily was to find something in the famous Italian leather.  A beautiful handbag perhaps...

We had just started down the street and saw a large crowd gathered.  We decided to see what was going on and were happily surprised to witness the last 5 minutes of the astronomical clock's amazing noon 'performance'.  It was pretty impressive to see all of the moving parts.  And hearing Ave Maria booming from the bell tower to the hushed crowds below gave me goosebumps.  What luck to have made it just in time!

Jacob was more impressed with the two, pretty, Italian girls standing off to the right.

  
Sorry for the shakey camera work, I was literally running up to the square because I wasn't sure how much longer it would last.

Did I mention how hot it was?  Well, it was H.O.T.  We pressed on, and Matthew, bless his heart, is such a trooper.  He lovingly agreed to walk all the way to the other side of the city to basically go purse shopping.  We were also on the look out for some place to eat, but couldn't find anything!  It was crazy, there were only stores.  We saw a few bars, but they didn't serve food.  We finally gave up on the shopping idea, and turned around and started heading back towards the ship, still hoping to find some lunch!  We finally found a pizza place, and all of the walking was worth it.  It was probably the best pizza I have ever had.  Matthew got this HUGE calzone.  The cook made a big deal to point out to Matthew that the calzone was shaped like a buffalo's head (the restaurant's logo).  Jacob even made friends with a little Italian boy at the next table who came and sat with us and played with Jacob.  He didn't speak a word of English, and I tried to ask him his name, but nothing I did (or gestured) made sense to him.

We had to be back on the ship early, so it could start the long trek back to Barcelona.  That night was the ship's one formal night.  It was quite interesting with a very tired baby.  Jacob had really had it by this point, and was not too keen on sitting through another dinner.  Our sweet waitress kept stopping by and would feed him a few bites or play with him, giving us a chance to actually eat our meal.  During dinner, the cruise director came over the intercom to announce that the captain was steering the ship past the volcanic island of Stromboli (I always thought stromboli was just another delicious Italian dish, who knew!).  Matthew and I took turns going out onto the deck to see the smoke spewing from the top of this active volcano.  Very cool.

 

Earlier in the week, Freddie and Matthew had a 'guy's night' and ate at the ship's steak house and went to the casino.  Now it was girl's night!  Jen and I met at the adult-only Serenity area after I put Jacob down for bed, and left Matthew reading on our balcony.  Since it was only about 8pm, when most normal adults are eating dinner, we had the entire place to ourselves!  It was so peaceful.  Nothing better than sipping a cocktail, watching the sunset from a hot tub on a cruise ship, and hanging out with a great friend!