Adventures in Messina

Today I have the day off of work. Eric is using his time installing lighting in our kitchen
(see bottom pic). Our kitchen is pretty nice- it has the best view in the house, and we've painted it a pretty blue- azzuro marino (sea blue) or something like that. I mentioned in my last post that Italian grocery stores only have 10 produce items. Well, the hardware stores only have 10 paint colors. At this point Eric would point out that some stores have places to choose a color from a book and have the paint mixed, but this brings up so many problems I don't know where to start. Consequently, our kitchen is accented with azzuro marino and our living room with marrone (red-brown).
The other day we drove up to Messina. This is the 3rd largest city in Sicily, about an hour away from us. It was completely destroyed by an earthquake 100 years ago, so it looks quite different than most Sicilian cities. I couldn't tell if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Their roads were really nice but their buildings were pretty uninspired. Our travel books said there wasn't much to do there except see the Duomo and go to the Museo Regionale. The books in particular liked the museum and said it has the largest collection of 15th 16th century art in all of Sicily. We thought it would make a good day trip.
We wanted to get there by noon, since the big sight in Messina is the belltower of the Duomo, which houses the world's largest astrological clock. Eric and I had been impressed by an astrological clock in Prague, so we wanted to see how this one compared. (you can check out pictures of our Prague adventures on Eric's blog) We got there early and took a look inside the Duomo. I really liked this church- it didn't have nearly as much of the flare as most churches- relatively no marble and an ugly altar, but it had an ornately painted wooden ceiling and really pretty mosaics. I'm a sucker for mosaics. Also, the sides were lined with larger than life statues of the apostles and other saints, which I thought were pretty well-sculpted. In a lot of Sicilian churches I find that the proportions on the human sculptures don't look quite right. Seeing some goofy looking saint with forearms the same size as his thighs makes you appreciate when you see one that looks fairly close to human.
We exited the church and took positions in the square with a good view of the clock. At noon the two big gold ladies started ringing the bells. These women supposedly saved Messina from invasion way back when. Too bad they couldn't do anything about that huge earthquake and tidal wave that killed 60,000 Messinans! Ok I guess I shouldn't mock devastating natural disasters. After they finished ringing the bells, the lion started wagging his tail and rearing his head back and roaring. ROARING. It was loud. After he roared a few times, the rooster perched between the bells followed suit and CROWED. Again, waking up the dead kinda loud. We thought this might be the end of the show, but then the Ave Maria starts bursting out of these tiny speakers. It was really dreadful sounding, but Eric and I were too transfixed to cover our ears- since Jesus is risen from the tomb, and He's waving at us! And there go the apostles walking past him waving back at him! And what's that- the Messina Duomo rising up out of the devastation of the earthquake, and there's a dove circling around it as it rises! And there's the holy family in the stable in Bethlehem, and the camels and shepherds and wisemen all pay them a visit. AVE MARIA!
Eric timed it- 12 minutes. It really was something.
Next we drove over to the museum. As we drove by it, we were impressed b/c it looked like a modern building and had lots of cool-looking bits and pieces of old archways, sculptures, etc, all over the grounds. We parked and walked up and found the gate locked. Hmm...was it closed that day? As we looked around it became clear that this museum hadn't been open in a LONG time. At least months, maybe longer.
This kind of thing ALWAYS happens to us in Sicily. Our guide books will say there is some really cool thing we should see, then we get there and it is closed/non-existent/not open on days ending in "Y" or months ending in "R"/closed for riposo (italian version of lunchtime "siesta") and may or may not open back up at 3:30 even though the sign says it should.
Frustrated, we head back into town and hope to find some good lunch. We go to a place in the guide book and of course it is closed. We walk around and find a place that looks adequate. When we get our menus we find that not only is nothing in english, but there is no italian description of the food, either. On most menus, they'll call something "Maccheroni alla Norma" and then describe it in italian "melanzane, basilica, ricotta salata, tomate". I can navigate these menus since I've become almost fluent in "restaurant italian". This menu no has descriptions and everything has names like spaghetti alla donna vecchia- old lady spaghetti?? Huh? And most of the other names are outside of my vocabulary. I'm hungry and still mad at the Museo Regionale, so I don't really want to ask the poor waiter the ingredients of every dish. I order the second thing on the menu- Paparadelle alla mare e monte. Eric orders the only recognizable thing on the menu, risotto con fungi porcini (mushroom risotto). Long story short, the pastas save the day! Mine was swordfish, shrimp and roasted mushrooms in a smooth and creamy tomato sauce with undoubtedly homemade paparadelle pasta. YUM!