Port 58 Messina, Sicily, Italy

by Ed · April 30, 2022

Buona giorno! Ciao!

We had a nice, crisp morning for our arrival in Messina on Apr 26th, 2022! Yay for nice weather!

The breakwater features this amazing tower to greet us, but with the backlight of the morning sun it is little more than a silhouette. We see a halo around the head and assume it is probably a Virgin Mary greeting us.

We have an excursion together to tour the city of Taormina and a Greek theater there. Our bus gives us a quick view of Messina before we head south to Taormina. Paola, our guide, tells us the clockworks in this tower clock is the largest mechanical clockworks in the world! Everything runs once a day at noon, and just a few elements work throughout the day at the hour and half hour marks. She points out the lion at the top and the rooster below it as symbols of the city and island.

We head south, and about 40 minutes later we begin seeing Mount Etna in the distance! White smoke is seen on the southern lip of the crater – smoke, or steam? This is still an active volcano!

We reach the gate of the walled city of Taormina!

The emblem above the gate is interesting! It displays two castles, topped with two eagles, topped with a crown. It does not appear to be the crest of Taormina which instead has a woman with centaur legs. But the crest on the gate signifies to me a unification of two powers under one leader. Hmmm…

On our way into town I spotted this beautiful decoration over an alleyway. Wagon carts were at one time colorfully adorned, and I believe this is a homage to that time.

We reach the first plaza, Plaza Duomo, and here on the top of the fountain we see that woman with centaur legs that represents Taormina! Also, in the lower basin of the fountain we have a bird taking a bath!

Here is a closeup of the centaur woman on top of the fountain. This fountain becomes our meeting place if anyone gets separated from the group.

This is the Duomo di Taorina church. It shares the Plaza Duomo with the fountain.

This is a simple, elegant interior! Lovely columns and clean, graceful arches lift the church!

As we walk through the town, I spot this hovering above!

Now that’s a cannolo! Great marketing!

Whoever designed this balcony had a great sense of humor when designing the corbels! We love finding jewels like this!

We reach the city’s center gate – the Porta di Mezzo!

Inside the gate is a beautiful Madonna and baby Jesus icon!

We pass a few churches without going in, but I want to include them since these tend to be the most beautiful structures in a town like this. This one is the Chiesa di San Giuseppe, the Church of San Giuseppe.

This is the Church of St Augustine.

We pass the narrowest usable alley in the country! It is only about 18 inches wide.

This is the Church of Sant Catherine of Alexandria.

This interior is elaborate but modest! The spiral columns and elaborate stauary is beautiful, but muted in all white. The dark open beam ceiling gives the church a sedate feeling. The chandeliers bring the eye back to the altar.

We make a right turn to go to the Greek theater. This amazing art is high on a building, and would have not been seen had the blue not caught my eye! This appears to be another take on the lady of Taormina, as a full centaur body rather than just the rear legs on the fountain and the city crest.

This important figure represents Sicily. It goes by many names, so I will just say the three legs have taken on the geographical meaning representing the three capes, the three points of the island of Sicily. The Medusa head has mythological heritage. This one touts the lemons this area is known for, as this is a prime limoncello country!

While our tour guide was talking I spied this view through someone’s gate!

Then we’re at the Greek theater! This is one of the best preseved sites we have seen! There has clearly been changes over the centuries as the Greeks built the theater for plays, the Romans took over and made changes to support gladiator events.

The seating area is still in very good shape. Bench seating was added to help recover upper tiers that have eroded away. This site is now used for concerts. And a crew is present building up the stage for an upcoming performance.

From the top row the view is amazing! There is not a bad seat in this house! And Mount Etna was probably still easily visible from the upper rows, even when the theater was complete!

The view from outside and beside the theater is equally breathtaking, seeing the city of Taormina stretch out along the mountainside! Mount Etna is puffing out a little more smoke than it was this morning.

Soon it is time to leave. From the bus I catch this castle on the point overlooking the coast.

We see how close we really are to the toe of Italy here at the Straits of Messina! Ferries ply the waters to bridge the gap.

Back at the ship we head out on foot to get a better look at the clocktower! It is after 1 PM, so we missed the noon festivities. This is the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption. Let’s look at the cathedral first, before we focus on the clock tower.

Inside, this cathedral is grandios! Tall, stately columns with high, sturdy arches! Tall walls up to eyebrow windows, and big, heavy-beamed ceiling! The ceiling is elaborately painted! This is the kind of cathedral they wanted centuries ago, to make the parishioner feel humble.

Each side is graced with massive statues depicting the twelve disciples of Christ, six on a side!

OK, now to the clock tower. Starting at the bottom there is a large calendar! It shows the year as 2022, but if the angel’s arrow is the pointer it thinks it is May 3rd. Above that is a zodiac clock! Then above that is a lunar phase indicator, similar to what we saw in Dubrovnik!

Looking at the front of the clock tower, starting at the bottom are a series of mechanisms that just go around in circles. I’m not focusing on them. Let’s focus on the two women on either side of the rooster. These ladies are Dina and Clarenza. One legend has it they kept watch on a hill while the men, exhausted from fighting, slept. When the French attempted another attack at night, Dina and Clarenze saw them coming and ran into town to ring the church bells. This saved the town, and so they are recognized on this clock.

The rooster is one of the symbols of Messina.

At the top of the clock is the mighty lion! He is another symbol of Messina.

Continuing our walk uphill we find the Tempio do Cristo Re. This is a Catholic church with a great presence at the top of the hill! It is also supposed to be a war memorial. It has a massive bell on a trestle in front of it!

On our way back to the ship we found a section of town that has wonderful tilework embedded in the sidewalk. It is poosible these are hometown repairs to broken sidewalk tiles that the city never got around to repairing.

This is the first group, with a lovely peacock, and flowers.

The second group has a bird, a cat, and a fish. We realized this is in front of a veterinarian’s office! Joy was disappointed there isn’t a dog!

Next we found an apple! Nope, no school to be found around here.

Finally, this one appears to be the harbor our ship is in! The clock tower we just looked at is on the left in gray. The tower at the end of the breakwater is shown! What puzzles us is the black exclamation point in the middle of the harbor. I wonder if it represents one of the oil rigs out in the water?

One more church appears on our way back to the ship. This is the Chiesa di San Francisco all’Immacolata, Church of San Francisco the Immaculate.

Right across the street is the symphony hall. This cute sculpture is out front!

Then it appears we run into a municipal government district. This is the Municipal Building!

This building shares the circle with the municipal buildings, but this one is actually a shopping mall!

Now we have decent light for this photo. It is a gilded Madonna atop a large column greeting ships to the harbor. “Vos et ipsam civitatem benedicimus” means “We bless you and your city.”

I don’t have any port departure shots to share today. We had a Captain’s Club party while departing, then went straight to dinner. We celebrated one of our waiters, Rohit, because he is leaving us tomorrow and is getting married next month!