Sicily, the Amalfi Coast and Rome
Mike and Judy Henderson
September 18 - 28, 2018
I'm going to leave the map on each web page so you can see where we are.
9/25/2018 (Tuesday) We arrived this morning at the Strait of Messina, which is the strait between Sicily and the tip of the Italy peninsula. At it's narrowest part, it is only 1.9 miles wide. In ancient times, this allowed Messina to control the shipping in the area and to collect taxes from ships going through the strait.
I couldn't get a picture of the opening of the strait from the ship, but I took pictures of the two shores. One thing that struck me was this tall tower, obviously for power lines. After some research, I learned that they had been used to carry electrical power between Sicily and the mainland from 1955 to 1994. They are known as the Pylons of Messina. Electrical power is now carried to Sicily via submarine cables.
After breakfast we boarded a bus for Taormina to visit the Greek Theatre. Here's a view of the theatre from the floor. The theatre is used for various entertainments - plays, concerts, etc. - so some of the seating is modern.
The pillars behind the stage.
This shot of the seating area shows the new wooden seats in the upper levels.
A panoramic view from the top of the theatre (picture taken from the web).
From the area at the top of the theatre we had a wonderful view of the coastline.
We walked around the town of Taormina, which was very crowded with tourists.
We stopped by the St. Catherine of Alexandria in Egypt church.
A view inside the church.
We walked to the main square of the town. Across the square is Joseph's Church.
By then, it was about noon and the local guide left us. Judy and I walked around the town and then went to Mamma Rosa's for lunch.
This is Mamma Rosa.
We split an authentic Sicilian pizza.
Other people from the tour also chose Mamma Rosa's.
This is the ship's doctor.
We had several hours to wander through the town and to shop after lunch. About 4pm we headed back to the ship by bus.
At the evening briefing we were told that the passage from Messina to Siracusa would be rough. And rough it was. We spent the night rolling back and forth on the bed. But I slept fairly well - the only time I woke up was when I rolled out of bed and hit the floor:-)
9/26/2018 (Wednesday) I got up about dawn and shot some pictures of the seas. It's hard to capture with a still photograph but here's one.
Here's some video I did showing the back of the Le Ponant in the rough seas.
Once we docked in Siracusa everything was fine. Our excursion today is to the Greek Theatre of Syracuse. On the way, we passed this church, the Shrine of Our Lady of Tears. The architecture is striking. We didn't visit it, but it certainly caught my eye.
The Greek Theatre is located in Parco archeologico della Neapolis which contains an ancient limestone quarry, the Greek Theatre and a Roman Amphitheatre (the link is in Italian but you can have Google translate it).
We visited the quarry first. The workers excavated the desired stone, which meant that they created tunnels and caves. Here's one of the remaining caves.
Then we visited one of the caves, called the Orecchio de Dionisio (ear of Dionysius). Walking inside we were treated to the astounding acoustics by a short demo sung by one of our passengers who used to sing at the Metropolitan Opera, in the chorus.
Next we walked to the Greek Theatre.
A view of the theatre from the top-side.
Then we walked to the location of the Roman Amphitheatre.
After the visit to the Parc, we went back to the port area and walked to the Isola di Ortigia, which is next to the port area and connected by a bridge. We viewed the ruins of the Temple of Apollo and then walked to the main square where we saw the Siracusa Cathederal and the church of Saint Lucia alla Badia.
Here's the church of Saint Lucy. Its claim to fame is that it contains a painting by Caravaggio, The Burial of Saint Lucy
We walked to the Fountain of Arethusa. I took this aerial view of the fountain from the web because I couldn't get a shot of the whole thing from the side of the fountain.
Here's a picture I took, which only shows a small part of the fountain with papyrus plants and koi. It is a natural spring rather than a constructed fountain.
When we got back to the ship we were told that there was a storm coming that would make passage from Syracuse (Siracusa) to Malta too rough, so Tauck was making arrangements to fly us to Malta on Thursday.
We had our farewell dinner that night. At our table were three musicians - a cellist, a violinist, and a soprano.
