Thanks, butnow I have more to do

[LadyYadaYada]

I will be on a RC cruise in May that sails from Barcelona to Ravenna with many stops in between. I thought I was done planning, but then I thankfully came across an informative post about transportation in Messina. I was hoping that day would be an easy relaxing walk about town from the ship. But it seems I will be planning yet another excursion of some type. The ship transfer from Taormino and back is $60(on sale) - $80. So why not get a little more for the cost of my transfer. So having not researched this port as indepth as other and suffering from planning burn out. What are your favorite low key favorite things to do at this port? We are not looking to fill the whole day with busy, but we are in port for 10 hours. 

 

Thanks again for the posts that helped me see the error of my "non"plans for this port 

[Shella73]

I am using https://www.italytours.eu/ for Messina in August.  The excursion is about 99 euro. I will be sharing it with others from my rollcall and other groups to get that cost.

[edinburgher]

11 hours ago, LadyYadaYada said:

What are your favorite low key favorite things to do at this port?

Messina itself is very low key with few sights, the best of which  is at noon when the Astronomical clock on the Cathedral chimes with lots of movement and sounds on different levels, even a lion which roars.  It is actually quite a famous clock with much info about it to be found online, and visitors gather in the square to watch it. It is only a 5 minute walk from where ships usually dock. That aside, we have never found much else to interest us there (on FOUR visits)  but it is a base for visiting pretty Taormina and/or Mount Etna which we did.  We also took a shorex one time which visited three "Godfather Villages", not so much to see where some scenes from the movies were shot, more for the drive and the villages themselves.  The drive was heart-in-the-mouth stuff, climbing ever higher on extremely steep narrow and twisting roads with dramatic scenery.

 

You could read about Messina on the usual websites such as Tripadvisor, YouTube, Tourist Information websites etc, to see if there might be something of interest to you in messina itself, otherwise I think you might only spend a couple of hours strolling around and watching the clock. There are nearby beaches and trams go there.  There are tram stops a couple of minutes from the port exit gates.

 

There have beena small number of past threads you might want to read, but for a first visit I think most would choose either Taormina or a Taormina/Mt Etna combo.  On a clear day there are good views of Mt Etna from Taormina.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/search/?q="godfather villages"&quick=1&type=forums_topic&nodes=464&updated_after=any&sortby=relevancy