And now, Sicily. Specifically, Messina, the port that just about kisses the toe of the Italian boot. It’s a very short hop over to the mainland… which is why Messina has the dubious distinction of being the conduit of the Black Plague into Europe in the 1340s – well, that and the idea this place has been a shipping port for more than a millennium. All manner of ships were coming in here.
Knocking the world population from 450 million to roughly 350 million, them little fleas from the Crimea had quite the bite.
Messina is called “the city without a memory” because of the 1908 earthquake (7.1) which flattened 91% of the buildings, after which three 12m (36 foot) tsunamis took care of whatever remained. Not to mention the poor buggers who gathered at the sea front to escape collapsing buildings.
Then, after they rebuilt a lot of the city, the Allied bombings during WWII whomped them again.
It’s now mostly rebuilt again, but as of 2021, they still had people living in the post-earthquake shacks constructed to house the survivors. The Italian government promised to use COVID relief funds to finally finish off those slums.
I don’t know if that occurred. It doesn’t look like it, frankly.
We opted for a tour of the city. The tour guide, a lovely fella who seemed to struggle a bit with English, did his best to tell us about history etc. He spun a tale about a young lady who kept beautiful garrrrrdenzzzzzzz but she discovered her lover had a wife and kids… so “behit him.”
Um… wot?
“Behit him!!”
She hit him? Oooookay… not sure that’s so noteworthy but I’m listening…
He paused dramatically. “Then! She use the hit as a vayzzzzeh for her loff-leeee flowwwww-wares!”
Sorry?
Ooooohhh… uh… yuck. That’s “beheaded”, actually. And how would she… Unngh… never mind. I don’t wanna know.
“Oooh, yezzz… bee-head-ed…” he chewed the words, then confessed “Thees eees ohn-lee my sekkond tyme giving thees tour in Eeeeenglish.”
Never mind, dear… your English is far superior to my Italian…
“Eyeee nohrmally geeev theees in French.”
Holy cow. Okay, I’m humbled. I can scarcely ask to go potty in another language and even then I can’t understand the response.
So we drove out to lago di ganzirri, a lake where they grow/raise (?) muzzles. And clamps. And “hour cheeldren do not whant to do thees.”
Your children don’t want to use muzzles and clamps? My mind drifts to places I prefer it doesn’t go. “Ees very hot een the summaire and they not whant to go in the wahtaire.”
OOoooooh. Mussels and clams. Aquaculture. In 114F heat? Oh, hell no, not me coach. However, it’s their primary agricultural product. Kind of a bummer if no one wants to work it.
From there we went to see their top tourist attraction, an astronomical clock, as well as a gilded, Catholic imitation of It’s a Small World’s hourly performance. The Messina version, however, only performs at noon each day.
It’s not bad, but nor is it a miracle of engineering, either.
Honestly, kind of a snoozer. Very little of the cathedral survived the quake and the War, so it’s recent build. We were cautioned not to wear shorts and to cover our shoulders out of respect, so I donned a dress over a pair of shorts.
I felt very overdressed compared to the others on the tour.
Examining Misadventures 