{"id":3311,"date":"2014-07-13T10:15:51","date_gmt":"2014-07-13T08:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=3311"},"modified":"2016-05-30T17:58:04","modified_gmt":"2016-05-30T15:58:04","slug":"introduction-to-messina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/introduction-to-messina\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction to Messina"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"biglietto_messina2\"<\/a>An Englishman arrives on the shores of The Continent\u2014presumably somewhere in Northwestern France\u2014eager to fight in The Crusades.\u00a0 He asks a fellow soldier at the basecamp, \u201cWhere do I find a boat to take me to The Holy Land?\u201d<\/p>\n

The reply is at once vague and yet very accurate.\u00a0 \u201cGo east until you hear Italian being spoken, and then go south until you don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this movie reenactment (\u201cThe Kingdom of Heaven<\/a>\u201d), part history and part fiction, the place where you \u201cdon\u2019t\u201d is Messina.\u00a0 This was\/is the proverbial crossroads of the Mediterranean where Europe, Africa, and the Middle East all collide.<\/p>\n

This also happens to be my wife\u2019s hometown, and we\u2019ve been staying here for over a month now while our little bambina gets to know the Sicilian side of her family. \u00a0I\u2019ve really been enjoying my explorations of this often overlooked destination.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been lucky, because we\u2019re staying at my brother-in-law\u2019s apartment right in the very center of town, and everything is just a 5-10 minute walk away.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For me, this spot in this city represents everything that I find appealing about life in Italy\u2014and the things that I miss when I\u2019m in the U.S.\u00a0 The grocery store, coffee bar, pizza place, newsstand, post office, wine shop, fish market, piazza, bookstore, shoe store, the port, the train station etc, etc, are all at our doorstep.\u00a0 To visit all these places in the US would take a full day and two tanks of gas.\u00a0 Instead here, I pop into the bar for a coffee and the owner gives my daughter a cookie while we chat.\u00a0 The focacceria<\/em> always adds a little \u201cbonus\u201d slice to my order.\u00a0 People talk, bump into each other (often literally), and exchange pleasantries.\u00a0 History all around you.\u00a0 Did I mention perfect weather and the best food anywhere on the planet?<\/p>\n

\"introduction<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the good side.\u00a0 There are frustrating aspects, too, which I\u2019ll mention in an upcoming post.\u00a0 But for the most part, the city is full of the type of human interaction that is so lacking in American society.\u00a0 I guess that could be said for Italy in general, but it\u2019s even more intense in Sicily.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m writing this introduction to Messina because I want to share this city through my eyes before I hand over my blog to my wife tomorrow who will give a much more accurate description of her birthplace. But that\u2019s the nature of travel, I suppose: what we see largely depends on the lens that we look through. No doubt, I often\u00a0use the rose-colored lens of a lovesick expat, or even the\u00a0typical American tourist. Like the camera that hangs around my neck, I see most everything in Italy two-dimensionally (not to mention selectively).\u00a0 Tomorrow Jessica\u2019s story has a deeper, personal perspective, as she recounts the most infamous day\u00a0in her town\u2019s history<\/a>. Get your handkerchiefs ready.<\/p>\n

So before we hear about that, let\u2019s do a bit of sight-seeing.\u00a0 Jessica will mention a few of these places in her post, too, but first I want to dispense with a brief introduction to Messina to give you the lay of the land.<\/p>\n

\"messina<\/a><\/p>\n

Playing the tourist in Messina<\/h2>\n

The Duomo, Clock Tower, Fontana di Orione.<\/strong>\u00a0 These are all found in the main piazza, Piazza del Duomo, in the center of town.\u00a0 The original church is from the Byzantine era, but the first cathedral was built during the Norman domination.\u00a0 Destroyed several times, by a fire in 1254, an earthquake in 1783, another quake in 1908, and finally allied bombs during the Second World War.\u00a0 And still it stands.\u00a0 Reconstructed, but still there.<\/p>\n

\"chiesa_catalani\"<\/a>Chiesa dei Catalani. \u00a0<\/strong>Dating from the late 12th-13th century, this is a beautifully preserved church just a block or two from the Duomo.\u00a0 When the quake of 1908 hit, the church trembled, but didn\u2019t break.\u00a0 It did, however, sink three meters into the earth, so that\u2019s why it\u2019s no\u00a0longer\u00a0at street level.<\/p>\n

Museo Regionale<\/strong>.\u00a0 This museum is not very inviting from the outside, as the grounds have been mostly left to the weeds.\u00a0 Indeed, there\u2019s nothing much on the inside, either.\u00a0 Well, that’s if\u00a0you consider Caravaggio \u201cnothing much.\u201d\u00a0 Two of his works are here<\/a>, beautifully restored and displayed.\u00a0 You\u2019ll likely have the whole place to yourself and you can put your nose about 2 centimeters away from \u201cThe Resurrection of Lazarus,\u201d if you like.\u00a0 I did.<\/p>\n

Piazza Cairoli and Viale San Martino, Via Dei Mille. <\/strong>This is the shopping\/passeggiata area of town where you can go in the evening to cool off in the shady square with a Birra Messina. Yep, they\u2019ve got their own beer! Try it with an arancino<\/em> at Irrera in Piazza Cairoli.<\/p>\n

\"sant'antonio,<\/a>Basilica Santuario Sant\u2019Antonio.<\/strong>\u00a0 We were lucky to be in town for the Feast Day of Saint Anthony, the town\u2019s patron saint.\u00a0 There was a big parade down the main street, and we took our little daughter to see it. When the statue passed by us, everyone started clapping and cheering.\u00a0 My 10 month-old daughter was so happy; she thought they were all clapping for her. \u00a0(Viva Santa Demetra!)<\/em><\/p>\n

The Basilica is worth a visit, but more so the little museum beneath the church dedicated to Saint Annibale, who lived in the same neighborhood and did a lot of great work for the poor folks of Messina.<\/p>\n

Day Trips<\/h2>\n

Sadly, 800+ years after The Crusades, Messina is still mostly famous for being a jumping off point to more appealing destinations.\u00a0 From our basecamp, we travelled to Taormina, Reggio Calabria, Tindari, and “The Godfather\u2019s hometown” of Savoca. We did not, however, make it to The Holy Land.<\/p>\n

I will probably devote full posts to each of these spots in the future, but the point I want to make here is that Messina is often seen as merely the front door to Sicily, where you wipe your feet and move on. \u00a0Heck, even the many cruise ships that stop here list \u201cTaormina,\u201d and not Messina on their ship\u2019s itinerary, opting for the more sparkling appeal of that steep little town on the rocky hill<\/a>, famous since the Grand Tour for attracting writers and artist.\u00a0 Alas.<\/p>\n

Grazie a mia moglie<\/h2>\n

\"jess\"<\/a>It should be noted that my\u00a0blog is only about 70-80% \u201cme,\u201d and the rest is Jessica behind the scenes.\u00a0 On the rare occasion when I write an acute insight about the peculiarities of Italian culture, it\u2019s usually me making an offhand observation, and then Jessica taking the time to dissect it and explain it to me.\u00a0 From there, the posts practically write themselves. \u00a0(And if you read Italian, check out her hilarious blog about life in Florida<\/a>!)<\/p>\n

Tomorrow you will get to read my wife\u2019s take on her hometown on the same day that we are leaving to head back up north.\u00a0 For me, it\u2019s been a wonderful experience to discover this little hidden gem and see all the places where my wife grew up.\u00a0 I\u2019ll miss it a bit, for sure.\u00a0 As for Jessica, as you\u2019ll read, the emotions are very much mixed and bittersweet.\u00a0 Like the history of the city itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Englishman arrives on the shores of The Continent\u2014presumably somewhere in Northwestern France\u2014eager to fight in The Crusades.\u00a0 He asks a fellow soldier at the basecamp, \u201cWhere do I find a boat to take me to The Holy Land?\u201d The reply is at once vague and yet very accurate.\u00a0 \u201cGo east until you hear Italian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,211,149,42,202,66],"tags":[384,111,140,139,381,193,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}