Day 4 was Sicily! Our ship docked at Messina. I had spent a lot (a lotttt) of time before the cruise trying to figure out what to do at each of our ports. The Disney shore excursions were pretty pricey, so we usually just decided to find our own fun. This was one the days I was looking forward to most...I had scheduled us to go paragliding! Everyone was pretty excited, except Dax. He has developed a fear of heights and did not think that it sounded like a good idea to go flying around in the sky. He volunteered to be the photographer. We kept asking him if he might change his mind, trying to encourage him, but he was pretty adamant, so we arranged for him to come along to watch us jump, then be down at the landing zone. He was very happy not to join us, and to this day he doesn't regret his decision to keep his feet on the ground.
When the ship docked my kids were not that excited when we walked past the huge group of waiting cars and taxi drivers, because I informed them the train station was only like half a mile away so we didn't need to take a taxi there. We can walk! There was a grumbling as we found our way to the station, but it really only took like 10-15 minutes, and ok maybe it was closer to a mile but STILL. We found our train pretty easily and started our scenic trip up the coast to Letojanni, a small beach town where we would meet our paragliding peeps.
The train trip was about 45 minutes, and there were two adorable older British couples in the row in front of us. They were clearly bumming around Italy for a while and were making plans and just talking about what to eat for lunch and I want to be just like them when I grow up. Here is a picture I took out the window of the train of the beautiful ocean and a reflection of one of my cute British idols:
We all piled into a big van/bus kind of thing and drove up a twisty road up the mountain, er, volcano. We could see the summit of the volcano from time to time, and smoke/steam (not sure which) was indeed coming out of it. I had read about this volcano beforehand in all my research and knew it was pretty common, so I reassured my kids that it was pretty unlikely we would see any lava or be killed in an eruption (it was probably good that our visit to Pompeii was for later in the trip, haha).
We got out of the car and did a little hike through the forest, until we came to a hill with no trees on it. this would be our jumping off spot. I started getting a little nervous.
Preston was first! They were most worried about getting him in the air since he was a "big guy." Me and the girls were also happy to let him go first and demonstrate what we would have to do to get ourselves airborne. It was pretty much....you run down this hill and don't stop running! I can do that.
Here is a picture photographer Dax took of Preston right before takeoff:
Preston ran down the hill like they said...all the way to the edge of the "cliff," but then they flew up into the air and out over the valley!
My turn next! I ran down the hill and about halfway down off we went! Dax took pictures like a pro but did not feel bad that he was not participating. He drove down the landing site with the tour driver to take pictures of our landing.
Included in the jump were pictures of our jumps...literally dozens of pictures. Most of them were of the tops of our helmets, but here are a few fun ones (for some reason mine didn't upload, but I am not sure if I was smiling as much as these guys anyway, because once we were in the air I started worrying about the landing, haha).
Here is Cora, who jumped last. Her tandem jumper was the best English speaker and he saw that she was having fun, so he did a lot of fancy flips with her at the end.
Here is Arden! She had a fun time also! Here she is right before she took off:
Once we "took off," we flew around over a forest for a while, gaining some altitude. It was so beautiful! we could look up the hill and see the summit of the volcano, and down below us in the valley was a little town, and far below was the beach and the Mediterranean. Amazing!
At the end of the "flight," Arden and her partner kind of circled around and around the landing site to lose altitude, and she started getting a little air sick, poor thing.
Here is Preston! His jumping friend didn't speak must English either.
I was worried about the landing, but not to brag, I nailed it! We waited in a pretty little meadow for the girls to land. Here is a picture of the meadow, and that is Cora up in the sky almost upside down, with Mount Etna in the background. Cool!
They kindly drove us to next destination, Taormina. Arden was realllly not feeling so great, so we stopped at pretty much the very first restaurant we saw. We had our first real Italian pizza at this restaurant, and it was nice to sit down and drink water for a bit.
Eventually Arden recovered and we ventured out into the cutest little Italian town you ever saw. We came across a cute little Italian alley with cute little Italian balconies and adorable Italian plants. I made Cora go stand in it to take her picture. Cuuuuuute!
Arden decided she wanted to get in on the picturesque alley too, now that she was feeling better. Cuuuute!
We headed down the main shopping street, Corso Umberto. It was kind of crowded, but very beautiful and there were lots of fun stores. Arden bought a cute little canvas bag, Cora got some post cards for the collection she was starting.
We found another picturesque alley. Daxton did not want to participate in the "lets go be cute in an alley" activity, so the girls did it again.
At the end of the street was a beautiful pizza called Piazza IX Aprile. It was stunning, up on the cliffs above the ocean. Here is a view looking away from the ocean back towards the church.
After we looked around the beautiful square, we decided we better start the trek down to the train station to catch the train back to Messina. I did NOT want to be one of those people who gets left by their cruise ships for being late, so I tried to make sure we were back with at least an hour to spare from all our shore excursions.
I used my trusty cell phone to navigate us down the mountain...it was by now verrry humid and pretty warm, but we were going down hill so it wasn't too bad, right?
Preston made me turn around on some stairs by a pretty bush and I of course blinked but its still a pretty bush!
Here is a picture that Preston took, they had cactuses on the hill, we were pretty far up there.
Me and Preston ditched the kids once we were back on the boat and headed straight to the pool deck and got some free soda and ice cream. It was nice to look down at the city of Messina as we waited for the last few people to get back to the ship. I felt a little bad that we didn't get to spend much time in Messina, but it was an unforgettable day (grouchy walks to/from train stations notwithstanding).
That night was pirate night!! Some people on the cruise had brought costumes. There was one guy who had like huge pirate boots, a big pirate hat, and a thigh-length leather pirate coat. He must have had a whole suitcase for that! We did not pack costumes, but luckily the ship provided each of us a free (??) Mickey Mouse bandana. Here is Dax in his pirate outfit at dinner.
We had a family of three with us on our dinner table, a mom, a dad and a girl Cora's age. They were super nice, but the mom and the girl were a little shy. The dad was quite a talker. My bunch of introverts usually made me sit by the dad most nights, and then me and the dad had to carry the conversation for the whole table, haha. It was fun though.
When the housekeeper turned our room into the night time configuration she would always leave us a cute towel animal. Our towel in pirate night was....something? I said it looked like a monkey, but it had a pirate bandana, so some people said it was a pirate. Cute, either way. We had gold chocolate coins on the bed.
After dinner, Cora went off with her teen club friends. Me and Arden and Daxton decided to go do one of the "treasure hunts" around the ship. This one was a Muppet one, we got our first clue at a computer, and then we were sent on a scavenger hunt/detective mission, and the portraits around the ship would activate and give us more clues. It was really fun!
Me and Dax also went and checked out the little kids' club since they were having an open house, and it was actually really cool! They had a Star Wars section and I think Dax was wishing he was littler so he could hang out longer.
The last activity of the night was Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl on the Funnel Vision screen on deck. It was was pretty cool to watch a pirate movie and be able to look over the railing at the ocean and remember we were also sailing the seas! It didn't start until like 11 p.m., so I didn't make it to the end of the movie. I was tiirrreed and pooped out around 12:30 and headed back to our cabin. Arden and Dax hung in there until the end of the show and came in an hour or so later.
Preston had called it an early night and was in full snore by the time we all made it back to the room. Arden had forgotten to charge her headband so she was struggling a little. But we all survived. The next day was a relaxing day at sea!
