Messina 3/22

Sunday morning we hopped on a bus from Palermo’s central station and headed to Messina.  We have been finding that the chartered busses are cheaper and more reliable than the trains.  The drive was about 2 hours and it was beautiful because it was mostly along the coast the entire time.  When we arrived we headed to our 4 star hotel that was right by the station.  We were excited to be in an actual hotel and maybe get internet, but when we walked into our room, we found that our interpretation of a 4 star hotel is much different than in Italy.  The room looked like it was last remodeled in the 1970s.  It was nice to have our own room and be right in the city so that we could come and go as we pleased.  We decided to have lunch in the city, and went out to explore.  As we walked outside, we found that Messina looked like a ghost town.  We knew that most of the cities in the south are supported by tourists, but everything was closed and we didn’t see very many cars on the road.  After walking around for a little while, we realized that it was Sunday and everything was closed because of that.  In the southern part of Italy, things are run very differently than in the north.  We also were walking around during lunch time and things close then also.  Messina was very pretty but it is a port town.  We couldn’t find any beaches and most of the harbor was taken up by large ships.  The weird part about Messina was that none of the Churches were open to look inside and it was Sunday.  Their cathedral had a clock attached to it that is known in Italy because at 12:30pm it plays music and different objects pop out.  It is one of the largest and most complex mechanical clocks in the world.  The strange thing about it though was that on the side of it was a clock with the signs of the zodiac representing the numbers.  Something interesting about Messina is that in 1908 it was struck by a large earthquake and tidal wave that killed 80,000 out of the 120,000 that lived there.  A ton was destroyed and this affected how the city is right now.  We walked around for a couple of hours taking pictures and then headed to the hotel before dinner.  That night for dinner was interesting because we had to walk around for a long time to find something open.  We finally found a small restaurant that only had the owner working on paperwork in it.  He made us a good pasta and a meat dish that were traditional for Sicily on Sundays.  The boat to Reggio Calabria left at 8am the next morning so we headed in for an early night.