Messina, Sicily

The city of Messina is a province of Italy,

located on the Island of Sicily.

We didn't stay in the city for our excursion,

which was entitled "In the Godfather's Footsteps."

I'm not a real "Godfather" fan,

(maybe I'll have to watch it!)

so taking this excursion was like taking 

"The Sound of Music" tour in Austria without seeing the movie!

The towns were sounded so quaint though, that I couldn't resist the tour.

This area's history is very old . . . . 5th Century.

I included this picture because I love plant life.

The lighter greenery in this picture are olive trees.

The little towns where they filmed the portions of the "Godfather"

movies in Italy are perched very high in the mountains.

We had a full size bus for our tour,

and at times the driver had to stop and back up to get around

these curves.

Our tour guide assured us we had a good driver,

as all the bad driver's were gone by now because of some accident or other :)

You could tell the locals were used to the buses,

they would just stop and wait for them to make the corners.

(backing up to Mt Vesuvius, the bus drivers would honk three times

 before they'd take a corner, warning the oncoming traffic)

When we reached the top of the hill we received our breakfast.

Our guide told us this was a traditional breakfast.

A fresh lemon slush and biscotti.

The slush had seeds in it!

This is the cafe that we had our breakfast at.

I think they served us "breakfast" 

so we could use their bathrooms.

As public bathrooms are VERY rare!

Such a nice cafe, under a bunch of vines.

As with all of Italy, the facades are cracking away

leaving the underlying building material showing

creating a fun atmosphere.

This is a speed sign.

0-24!

I collect Nativity scenes for Christmas time.

Italy is full of Religious art.

I was able to purchase a couple of interesting nativity scenes on the trip.

I was excited to learn that this flowering plant 

I'd been seeing was Bougainvillea.

I have seen this flowering plant mentioned 

in the descriptions of books I have read,

so actually seeing it in person was fun. 

Up close:

One of the people who put this and another little town on the map.

Some sights from the hike around the town.

This church was in the movie.

A sign outside the church.

A tropical desert.

This is part of a cistern

 system under some houses.

Imagine doing your laundry there!

We moved along to another town on the top of the hill

that filming took place in also.

During on of our precious bits of free time I got a Cannoli.

I'd been hearing lots of good things about them.

This one just tasted greasy to me.

I had to choke it down . . . . probably should have thrown it away!

Sorry to tell you the truth about it . . . . 

The shop where I bought it was cool though!

A castle, perched on top of a mountain.

The coastline from above looking toward Messina.

Another church where filming took place.

I included this picture so I could remember our tour guide, Toni.

She is a German who has lived on the Island of Sicily

for most of her adult life.

She was hilarious, telling us about the Sicilian way of life.

It is kind-of Hakuna Matata, no worries.

I needed to include this picture

taken in a CATHOLIC church.

The FATHER, Son and Holy Ghost

(in the form of a dove).

It is not often you see The Father and His Son represented in art.

The gateway leaving the church.

We walked through this, the narrowest street I have ever seen before!

A wall.

These are choir seats in the cathedral.

Carved Wood.

Incredible!

and a far cry from our choir seats in our chapel :)

This gas station consisted of the pumps.

And a bowery of vines.

That is it!

By the way, gas was $12 dollars a gallon in Rome.

Not sure what it was here.

They sell it by the liter and in Euros,

times that by four and convert to US dollars,

$12.  YIKES!

When we got back to Messina we wandered around a bit.

In Sicily, they take a "siesta" (not sure what they call it)

from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. every day.

whether or not there are tourists that want to shop.

The cruise ship director told us no matter how much money they

might be losing by staying closed during those hours

they stay closed anyway.

The Sicilian way of life . . . . so what?

Our waiter told us to take our laptops or other Internet devices with us to Messina.

Their cafes are known for their Wi-fi hot spots.

Even the ships crew that can, get off to use the Internet there.

ON ship, Internet costs 75 cents a minute to use

and it is SUPER slow . . . . it took me 8 minutes JUST to get to my e-mail home page!

If you wanted to use your data plan it could be up to $15 per data unit.

(however that works, I don't know!)

I took my tablet off the ship, 

bought a pizza

and sat there for a while

getting in touch with my husband after a long trip away.

My mother-in-law who didn't even want to eat because it wasted precious time,

was very patient with me.

She understood how much I missed home and needed to touch base.

Bless her!

Technology can be wonderful at times.

And unless I decide to blog about "ship life"

this will be the end of my journeys

on the blog!

When people ask me how the trip was, it is hard to put into words.

Maybe after reading some of my posts, you would understand why.

There are no words.

A trip of a lifetime . . . . my only regret is 

I wish I could've shared it with Lincoln.

Maybe someday . . . . . 

Dubrovnik, Croatia

When looking at our list of destinations,

I didn't realize that Dubrovnik, Croatia would be one of my favorite places to visit

until we experienced it.

I LOVED this town!

It is sooooo picturesque and beautiful. 

You can tell they take great pride in their city and for good reason.

This was on the side of our bus.

The next picture is

A "panoramic" view of Dubrovnik.

This city has a history that goes back as far as the 7th Century.

According to Wikipedia, it is one of the top 10 medieval cities

and rivaled Venice in prosperity.

Unfortunately today they aren't as fortunate.

Our waiter we had on the ship is from Dubrovnik,

He will not marry or have children because he feels there 

is no future for children in his country.

His story is sad and thought provoking

as is the country of Croatia's story.

When he, (Zoran) decided to try for a job on the cruise line,

he had to learn English.  

He worked full-time for $4 a day, 

and paid his English tutor $6 an hour for English lessons.

He had 1 English lesson a week,

Studied every spare minute,

(his mom told him if he would had studied like that in school he could have gone far!)

and got the job and worked his way up to being a head waiter.

His beginning salary was only $320 a month,

but when you consider he used to make $4 a day, 

it was a step up.

Anyone who has taken a cruise knows that getting to know

your waiter is a highlight of the day on board the ship.

On previous cruises we've had Croatian waiters also . . . . 

One thing different about being in Europe is that you hardly ever hear anyone speaking English.

THEY CAN and will speak English thankfully!

but you are surrounded by many different cultures.

It's really kinda neat.

Dubrovnik is a walled city.

Our excursion was called "Walking the Ramparts."

We walked around the city!

The ramparts were built to defend Dubrovnik,

but they never needed to use the ramparts until 1992

when they decided to become an independent country.

They won their independence from Yugoslavia

(our waiter was actually a soldier during that war)

and are so proud of the fact that they will become part of

the European Union very soon.

They have their own currency,

but since they are soon joining the EU

Euros were accepted everywhere we went.

Here are some bullet holes from the 1992 war.

This is part of the stairway of the ramparts.

We traversed over 1,000 stairs!

Most of the "Old Town" was bombed during the war.

They have rebuilt very meticulously trying to keep the ambiance of the town.

In the foreground of this picture you see older roof tiles.

The older roof tiles are buildings that did not get bombed.

The newer redder tiles are what had to be rebuilt.

Most buildings had to be rebuilt.

Our tour guide is from the "old town" within the walls.

He said only 1,000 native people live there now.

Most of the property belongs to developers that rent out the space.

(our waiter has an apartment there) 

You can see people walking along the ramparts in this picture.

I thought the clothesline was interesting.

It's just a little peek into the life there.

There is no car traffic in the town.

These people who live there have to walk

and climb steps to grocery shop or to do anything they need to do.

Your thighs would become strong

especially if you lived in the back part of the city along the coast!!

A view of the outside of the walls to the Adriatic Sea.

You can see a little cafe on the cliff and wall.

A church.

I felt a little like I was invading this lady's privacy,

she was hanging her underwear on this little clothesline.

I couldn't resist snapping the picture though :)

Most of the city has been rebuilt, 

but this part is still in ruins.

Notice the satellite dish?

they are forbidden, because they want to keep the city "old."

This one will have to be removed if discovered!

After hearing how they wanted to keep the city "old" looking,

I was surprised to see this!!!  

Maybe a school?

Gotta keep the kids busy doing something!

One thing cool about Dubrovnik is that is you were paying attention,

bells would ring about every 15 minutes.

I wanted a video of it, just to remember the sound.

I only took one video

and didn't realize there was a guy hacking up his lungs in the background

until I listened to it JUST NOW!

But you can still get the idea of the feeling it gives the town.

(reminds me of The Sound of Music movie)

Such a beautiful place.

Something spectacular around every corner.

A guard shack at the top of the rampart.

This was at the very top of our climb.

At the top!  I made it!

The tiles on the ground were so smooth they looked like they were polished.

Our guide told us that it was just foot traffic that polished them.

My brother-in-law Jeff really wanted to swim in the Mediterranean Sea.

This was his only chance.

Our only problem . . . . . 

it was the Adriatic Sea!!!

Here he is jumping off some rocks.

Earlier we had seen some people jumping off these rocks

and our tour guide told us it was illegal.

OH WELL!  he did it anyway.

I didn't bring my swim suit along with me,

so I just put my feet in the sea.

The water is crystal clear as you can see.

It was quite deep here.

Probably four or five feet deep.

the water temperature was really cool!

burrrrrr!

Wetness from the sea!

It was so hot that day

that just getting my feet wet cooled me off.

Me, my mother-in-law Claudette, and sister-in-law Celesta.

We thought this cove looked inviting so we found our way down to it.

And found the rest of our group sunning themselves there.

This was in the cove area.

A home?

It looks like a fairy tale house.

This looked like something that belonged on Pinterest.

A little cafe that had seating made out of old bathtubs!

A peek inside another cathedral.

Nice!

I misspoke on my last post . . . . 

I said that Croatia was our last destination.

It was NOT!

One more to go . . . . . Messina, Sicily tomorrow!