Strait of Messina

This ship certainly has something for everyone! Last night we had our very nice dinner, then drinks in the jazz bar (live music) and ended up dancing in the Dungeon Disco! And there was plenty more entertainment and live music going on around the ship for all age groups and tastes. I can see that the whole thing is cleverly planned, and I have to admit that we are enjoying this strange new experience! Too soon to say if we would repeat it but so far so good.
James woke me at seven this morning to show me Stromboli as we passed it; it looked beautiful, the top of a volcano sticking out of the blue sea. A couple of hours later we docked at Messina. This had been a subject of much debate between James and me, regarding whether we have visited it before on our previous visit to Sicily when we went on the hydrofoil to Volcano. It turns out that we have not visited it; the port that we sailed from that time was Milazzo. We went out on deck as we approached the harbour; the strait of Messina is so narrow that you can clearly see the houses on Italy across from us. The harbour has a column at its entrance with a golden statue of Jesus holding out his hand welcomingly, underneath there is an inscription which says "Vos et ipsam civitatem benedicimus" which I think means something like "Blessings to you and yours." How friendly.
Disembarking from the ship was easy, we just checked out using our universally useful key cards (let's hope we don't lose them!) and wandered into the streets of Messina. We decided to jump on a tram to the town museum but when we got there it was closed (as many museums are on a Monday in Europe!) So it was a bit of a false start to the day, but nothing daunted we got another tram back to the centre and got to the Piazza del Duomo just in time for the musical clock tower display at 12 - this was heralded by the crowing of a gold cockerel and consisted of various moving parts including lots of golden apostles parading around in a circle, bowing to Jesus, while the strains of Ave Maria filled the air. Great fun. We visited the cathedral and another church nearby; although they are built beautifully and traditionally they are in fact quite modern because they were destroyed along the rest of Messina in a massive earthquake in 1908. The town council has done its best to recreate them, and to use the less pulverised bits of masonry, mosaics and statues, incorporating them into the fabric of the building where they can. You can clearly see this, and they have done a good job, but what a shame that it was all destroyed! We did a fair bit of walking about and enjoying the atmosphere and had Pizza alla Norma (with aubergines - a local specialty allegedly) in a wee pizzeria. When we got back to the ship we went up to the pool deck and watched ships go by on their way to Italy and had a jacuzzi and listened to more live music. We watched from our balcony as the ship was untied and moved out into the dark water. Now we are getting ready for dinner as the ship sails around the toe of Italy and heads east.