Hotel Santa Isabel Messina

Hi agian today I didnt send you the link for yesterdays entry so now you have two. Today has been such a fabulous day, we have been , quite near to the Port, to an ancient place to see the tombs of the Etruscans, at Tarquina,facinating, and Liz I understand how you loved Armenia and its burial crypts...this was so a very special day, they are so so old, and we went right down into them and there were these amazing frescos, BC and far beyond ...

... hour. Too many people! Today we passed through the Strait of Messina (and the Isthmus of Loggins, ha!) and also the volcanic island of Stromboli. There is a little village on the very edge of Stromboli-can't imagine why anyone would live on this active volcano. It was cool to see, though. Last night I got the best towel animal EVER, a peacock. I told Gaga that he needn't give me anymore towel animals, that he had plenty of work to do as is. Tomorrow, Rome. Nano word count: 4695

... Napoleon Roasted Mediterranean vegetables and balsamic syrup Soup: cream of chicken with toasted almonds Salad: spinach salad with bacon, chopped eggs and crispy onion Entre: Pork Loin stuffed with carmelized apples and prunes Dessert: Chocolate truffle cake with berry coulis Again, we had just enough energy to walk around the ship and look at the stars. All that eating takes a lot out of you!

... The other frustration in this cruise has been the manners of the guests on board with us. We came to find out that over half of the ship was Italian, mostly wealthy Neapolitans. This in itself is not bad, and I don't want to generalize all Italians but our friends on board were not the slightest bit friendly. In fact, they were quite rude, and didn't appear to be at all happy to be on vacation. Maybe it ...

Yesterday Fabrizio's friends took me around Messina. They took me to a spot to see a view of the water and apologized for Calabria being in the way. It was very beautiful. I like how no matter where you go you can always see the ocean here. Its very relaxing all the time. We went for ice cream too, it was the best I've ever had with cream on it. So good, much better than cool whip. I also saw a monumental clock. It plays music every day ...

We now are in transit and will wake up about 185 miles south off of Lipari. It is a small group of islands just north of Sicily, right next to the tip of the boot. I've never been there and franly have never heard of it. I'm excited!

... _____ Later on Friday, we also said good-bye to Joe, this time on a 5pm hydrofoil back to Palermo. He flies to London from there tomorrow morning. From the pier we took some action shots of Jim leaping into the water. Then we set out on a short trek to Punta Marcello for some nice sunset views. However, we prematurely anticipated the sunset (or actually, the hike was much shorter ...

... I'll add. We hiked back through the town and got back to the boat as nightfall really hit. Perfect timing for a terrifying 3 hour ride home in even choppier waters with no visibility!! :) We got back to Rinella after midnight, sun-burnt, sore, and worn out. The ladies hiked up the hill and went to bed. Jesse, Jim, and Joe went to Rinella's busiest bar and had a few rounds of birre. We were rewarded with a few trays of free appetizers.

Briefly, the island Salina, the town we're in Rinella, and our house are all magnificent. The first few days of our stay were spent relaxing in our gorgeous surroundings and enjoying some of the great, very local food. When first on Salina, we rode a long, winding 1 hour bus ride to the small port of Rinella, where our villa was. In Rinella, we waited for our contact Franco to show us to the house and pointed around at different ...

... now, thank you. We purchased an Inmarsat-mini C Satellite transceiver. This will allow us to send emergency email messages from the middle of the ocean. We also have with that that a "little red button" for abandon ship kinds of things. If the red button is pushed, the emergency message is immediately sent to the nearest national search and rescue organization. The transceiver has a tracker feature that if you are so inclined, you could watch our progress from ...