When some people think of Sicily, they think of The
Godfather; or maybe that football being kicked by the boot of
Italy. I think we will now think of the
image of an erupting Mt. Etna!
We had been to Sicily once before back in 2008. At that time we docked in Catania and
ventured to the city of Siracusa, from which the city of Syracuse, New York was
named. Having gone to Syracuse
University, I was interested in seeing that interesting city. I remember how much I liked it as well as one
of the best tour guided we ever had.
This year though, we docked at Messina on the Straits of Messina
separating the Island of Sicily with Italy itself.
Since we docked midmorning, we had an opportunity to view
the sail in and to see this small city from the ship. There were all sorts of architecturally
interesting buildings and statues visible from the ship, particularly since
Messina slopes upward on a hill. There
was the dome shaped World War I memorial high on the hill. There was the cathedral and other churches
clearly visible. Finally we are seeing
churches with crosses on their steeples rather than elephants and cleansing
pools. Practically across from the dock
was a large flat building with various flags including that of the European
Union flying outside. Barbara Haenni in
her lecture about Messina had spoken of the elaborate clock tower with the
animated figures that “perform” at noon each day. We could see the clock tower from the ship.
With an arrival time set for 11 AM and a shore excursion at
12:15, I figured that would pretty much consume our time in Messina. However, because of heavy afternoon ship
traffic, authorities there had asked that we dock earlier. With arrival pushed up to 10 AM, it gave me a
chance to explore the area near the ship for about an hour. So I set off on foot, not knowing exactly
what I would find. I was pleasantly
surprised to see so many of the buildings we had seen from the ship and had the
opportunity to photograph them without whizzing past on a bus. I was able to see the face of the clock and
the figures that would “perform” at noon, but knew there was no chance I would
be able to see it at that time. The
spring flowers were in bloom as well as flowering trees. It made me wonder if
that is happening back home and wonder if the warm winter has speeded it
up.
After an early, quick lunch, we were ready for our planned
shore excursion, Scenic Mt. Etna. Mt. Etna has been erupting regularly recently
and we were in hopes that we might see it today if we were lucky. It was an approximate two hour drive each way
to the mountain, one of the highest in Europe and the highest in all of Italy. We passed on a superhighway for part of the
trip, along the Sicilian coast and past a number of small cities and
villages. We saw lots of prickly pear
cactus as well as lemon trees full of lemons, cherry and apple trees with their
beautiful spring blossoms.
We turned off the highway and began to climb on switchback roads
through small villages. We alternated
with the other side of the bus as Mt. Etna came into view. Our guide, a volcanologist, had said there
was an excellent chance that we might see some eruptions from the mountain as
it has been active recently. As we went
higher, we saw many areas with volcanic rock and he was able to say “this field
is from the 1892 eruption or the 2001 eruption, etc.” The rest of us couldn’t
keep straight what lava fields belonged to what year’s eruption.
Partway up the mountain, he had the driver stop so we could
view the mountain and sure enough, against a somewhat hazy sky, we could see
plumes of the erupting volcano. What a
treat for those of us who have never seen this act of nature! Still higher, we began to see old snow banks
with ash covering it. He explained that
the black soot was from Mt. Etna but there were also some red areas from sand
from the Sahara Desert in Africa that had blown there! From
there, we climbed higher to a visitor center with several buildings. After the required “pit stop”(!), our guide
led us on a short walking tour on cinders from volcanic eruptions up one of the
craters. Wherever we looked we saw
volcanic soil and rocky volcano stones, much of which was on old snow
cover. We hadn’t seen snow since
Antarctica until this visit! While walking around on the loose cinders, Barb
had not one, but two, falls. Both,
fortunately, were minor and she wound up both times in the seated position!
After over an hour there, we began our return to the ship,
but partway down the mountain, the guide had the driver stop and there it
was!!! Mt. Etna was putting on a show
for us with nearly constant eruptions.
We were eight kilometers away but we could hear the thunder-like sound
of eruptions deep in the crater of the mountain. Ash plumes were clearly visible against the
now blue sky. We borrowed binoculars
from a couple with the foresight to bring them along. We could see the rocks shooting in the air
and the lava starting to flow down the mountain. It was a far better show than we had observed
on our ride to the visitor center. We
able to add yet one more new event on this amazing adventure of many varied
“firsts” this cruise has afforded.
After leaving Messina, we sailed past the island of
Stromboli, an island noted for its almost constant volcanic action. We had seen some small flickers of action
when we were in the area in 2008 and hoped for more this time. At 10:30 PM, the approximate time we would be
passing, Barbara Haenni came on the public address and commented that Stromboli
volcano seemed to be taking a break that night.
It was disappointing but we commented that given the choice between the
exciting eruption we had just seen from Mt. Etna, we preferred to see Mt.Etna’s
action.
Our short overnight sail brought us to Naples, Italy’s third
largest city (behind Rome and Milan) and second busiest port (behind
Genoa). Since Barb and I had both been
to Naples four times in the past, both Al and we opted to do a panoramic tour
of Naples followed by an authentic Neapolitan Margherita Pizza. The tour was called A Taste of Naples: Pizzas and Piazzas. The morning had dawned cloudy with a hint of
rain. We had had this happen before,
notably in The Falklands, but there the weather cleared and the day was
nice. Not so in Naples. It was our first fully rainy day of the
entire 98 days so far of the cruise. I
guess we couldn’t complain about that given our good record to date. We were
glad we had chosen this tour, mostly a panoramic tour of Naples with several brief
stops before the finale in the Italian restaurant. Naples is a launching point for Pompeii and
Mt. Vesuvius, the beautiful Amalfi Coast and Sorrento, and the enchanting Isle
of Capri. But we had been to each of
those places at least twice before so decided to do the shorter excursion in Naples
itself. While picture taking wasn’t good
from the bus, we imagined walking the ruins of Pompeii or the streets of Capri
and were glad we had chosen what we did.
We first passed the imposing Castel Nuovo which is visible from the
harbor. As our guide told us, it dated
to the 13th century and is a symbol for Naples. There was a massive amount of construction
around it because Naples is building a subway system now. However, in the digging a couple years ago,
they found some ancient remains of columns which they of course want to
preserve. We visited the Galleria Umberto,
a large indoor shopping and business area with decorative marble floors and
high ornate windows. The guide said it
was similar to, but not as large as the one in Milan which we visited in 2001. Across the street was the Opera House, which
was the oldest in Europe.
From there, we walked,
umbrellas held high, to the Piazza Plebiscito where we viewed a large building
across the piazza said to be modeled after the Pantheon. That was across from the Palazzo Reale, the
home of monarchs in times past. In the courtyard there, Barb made a new
friend. A large black dog, undoubtedly
stray, came up and walked with her. It
even brushed its soaking wet body against her legs to show friendship. It let her pet it and walked with her partway
back to our bus.
We
continued our rainy journey on a drive past the picturesque Bay of Naples,
viewing an area which had once been the interior of a long extinct
volcano. We also paused to look out on
the Bay of Naples with some yachts for the Americas Cup race apparently set to
be held there. Through the rain and
clouds we could make out the faint image of the historic Mt. Vesuvius in the
distance.
Our final stop was at an authentic pizza restaurant in the
city that invented pizza, much like the chicken wings and beef on weck (it’s
the rest of the world’s loss that it doesn’t know what beef on weck is) were
invented in Buffalo. We were escorted to
our seats at tables so crammed together they must have though a bunch of seven
year olds were coming! They brought out
a tray and demonstrated the ingredients for the pizza as well as demonstrating
how the dough was rolled and made into the crust. Each of us received a large individual Margherita
pizza, some wine or soft drink, and a delicious cheese filled pastry for
dessert. Most of us devoured all or most
of the authentic pizza. Al, however,
demonstrating his traditional restraint limited himself to just about a quarter
of the pizza!
We had anticipated that the weather might improve in the
afternoon, but the rain continued as we ended our short two day visit to Italy
and headed off for the French island of Corsica.
CT
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