Life Outside the Loop: Sicily

Sunrise over Italy

First off, I hope everyone in Texas is safe in this bad weather. I’ve been tracking Hurricane Ike on CNN in my stateroom. Scary.

We had some drama onboard last night. We were about an hour out of Valletta when the Captain came on and announced we were heading back to remove an ill crewmember. It must have been pretty bad since we have doctors on board…and a morgue. Rumor has it one of the cabin stewards was found unconscious in his room. We got an update later, once we had set sail again, that the crewmember was stable and doing better than expected…but no details. Speaking of sickness, 38 people got food poisoning on one of the tours in Turkey. I talked with one of them and they’ve all made quick recoveries. I’ve been a little under the weather for a few days now, but just with a sore throat and congestion. It hasn’t interfered with my trip much, but I do head to bed pretty early. Hopefully it’ll clear up before I have to get on the plane Monday.

Enough about all that, let’s talk about Sicily! The view off my balcony this morning was the Straight of Messina. I could see both Sicily and Italy. I headed off on a tour to Tindari, about 45 minutes outside of Messina, our port city. On the bus we learned that Sicily has been under pretty much everybody’s rule in the area: Greek, Roman, Spanish, French, etc before finally coming under Italy’s rule.

First we visited the Tindari Ruins. Below you’ll see pictures of the Greek Basilica (A Roman structure but using Greek methods and materials) and the Greek Theater:

Next we walked over to the Sanctuary of the Black Madonna. The Black Madonna was a Byzantine statue that according to legend was left behind by unknown sailors from the East after their ship ran ashore. The statue was carried up the hill and a church was erected around it to allow visitors. To this day it is a popular pilgrimage location and the church has increased in size to accommodate visitors coming to see the Black Madonna. Here are pictures of the church, the Madonna, and a mosaic of the statue’s discovery. Little confession, the church had two Black Madonna’s and I couldn’t really understand our guide so I have no idea which is the real one. I’ve included photos of both.