Celebrity Mediterranean Cruise - Sicily/Messina, Italy

Saturday, August 23, 2008

The first time I woke up, it was about 6 am. The second time I woke up, it was about 7:30. I finally decided to get out of bed at 8:45 and left Seth sawing away as I sat on our veranda and finished last night’s blog entry. It was a beautiful day outside with a slight breeze and sitting on the veranda was just priceless as we made our way to our first port of call, Sicily/Messina. At 9:45, I finally went back inside but knocked over the small glass table as I made my way in and broke a champagne glass. This woke Seth up and we finally got dressed and out the door just before 10 am. Waiting on our door was a note about the Cruise Critic Connections party to be held in the Stratosphere lounge at 10:30. We only had 30 minutes for late breakfast in the Oasis café: fresh fruit, cold smoked salmon, cereal, and yogurt for me.

When we finished breakfast, I headed to the Connections party while Seth returned to the cabin. I went from aft to forward on deck 12 which took me outside to the deck that overlooked the pool. We were just pulling in to Sicily and there were many passengers along the railing and laying around in the sun. I later commented to Seth how I should have gone another way as there were a large number of frightening sights on this deck – people in bikinis and Speedos that had no business wearing them.

It was almost 10:45 when I arrived at the Connections party and I immediately saw Wade. Charlie had also elected to stay in his cabin during the party. We mingled for quite a while making so many connections between faces and screen names. We also confirmed with other passengers whom we were sharing tours with agreeing to meet in Michael’s bar about 15 minutes prior to our scheduled private tours. Stewart, our cruise director, made introductions and afterwards, we gathered for a group photo. We mingled for a little longer and then it was time to return to the cabin to get ready for our Messina wine tour. I headed back to our cabin at about 11:30 am.

We quickly packed our things and headed down to the Rendezvous Lounge at noon for our 12:15 tour. We brought along our passport copies since Celebrity had kept our passports when we checked in for the cruise. There was a copy of our passports slipped under our cabin door this morning but I had brought along color copies of our passports and credit cards. We checked in for our tour, were given a green #4 sticker and told to wait in the Lounge until we were called. It was almost 12:45 by the time our number was called. Wade and Charlie joined us as we waited to leave the ship.

We left the ship and skipped past the photo op with the Roman guard boarding a Mercedes bus just a short walk from the pier. The bus was very comfortable but we had been warned earlier that “Italian regulations” prevented the buses from being cooled off as much as some would have liked. The scenery was gorgeous and our tour guide kept up a running and informative commentary about the countryside dotted with exclamations of “Mama Mia” when we ran into traffic or when she noticed something surprising. When we finally came into view of Mount Etna – it was pretty amazing watching the steam pour out of this active volcano.

The drive took about 1.5 hours ending after a twisting and turning route up steep hills to reach the Barone di Villagrande. After we got off the bus and headed into the winery’s courtyard, the view was gorgeous and we took turns taking pictures with the vineyard in the background. We were first treated to olives, salami, cheese, and bruschetta served along with our first white wine: Etna Bianco (7 Euros/bottle) out in the courtyard. We sat on the steps and sipped on our wine taking more pictures of each other.

Soon we were invited into the “barn” and were treated to an Italian buffet with sautéed eggplant, olives, roasted peppers, percorina cheese, sausage, and macaroni pasta which looked a lot different than the macaroni we had at home. The pasta was cooked al dente which isn’t actually my favorite but it was delicious, nonetheless.
We sampled another white wine, Fiore followed by 2 red wines: Etna Rosso (7 Euros/bottle) and Sciara (13 Euros/bottle). Our favorite was the Sciara. The wine was poured very generously. The ladies serving the food and pouring the wine were hit-and-miss with their English. Apparently in Italy, “Thank you, I’m fine” meant that you wanted more wine.

After our plates were cleared, they served a biscuit which was a type of almond cookie with a good serving of their sweet wine, the Passito. This was my hands down favorite – I had 2 glassfuls. After we finished, we were invited back out into the courtyard where we were given espresso, more biscuits, and the opportunity to try their Grappa (18 Euros/bottle). We were served a teeny amount of Grappa in glasses which was more than enough for me. Grappa smelled like hard liquor and a small amount goes a long way.
We took more pictures and bought a bottle of Etna Rosso (13 euros) as well as a bottle of Passito (20 euros) to take home. The winery didn’t take credit cards but they did accept either Euros or USD. The bus ride back to the pier was mostly quiet and we dozed off after having so much wine.

We then went back to our cabin and changed into our workout clothes. I did 30 minutes on the stair climber in the fitness center and finished up after the ship had started pulling away from Sicily. We returned to our cabin and showered/changed then left the cabin which was getting pretty warm. That's one thing that I really disliked about our cabin - the thermostat was set at the lowest setting - 65F - but it never got even close to that cool in our cabin. We wandered the ship a bit checking out the art gallery, the casino, and the shops but we didn’t find anything of interest so we went out to the pool deck and sat on some loungers until dinner time at 8:45.

We were the first to our dinner table again but were soon joined by the family of 6 and the couple from England. We exchanged stories about our day and I enjoyed escargot, creamy mushroom soup, a young chicken and tiramisu for dessert. We learned a lot this evening about New Zealand and should really consider taking a vacation there. We finished our pinot grigio from last night and ordered a bottle of Merlot. This was the most alcohol we’d had in a very long time. We returned to the cabin, watched tv for a bit, then called it a night. We have a day at sea tomorrow and set our clocks ahead an hour in anticipation of reaching Greece on Monday.