The Night on Etna

After leaving the ferry in Messina, we headed for our

hotel for the night on the side of Mt. Etna. The autostrasse was a series of tunnels and mountain hugging curves, until we exited and began the drive up the volcano itself. The hotel we were headed for was the Milomax, located in the small town of Milo. The hotel is a small two storey building the sits right on the edge of the road. We were more tired than hungry at this point, and after being led to our rooms headed almost straight to bed, after a brief bit of difficulty with the owner, who wanted to know if we wanted lunch the next day, and who we didn't understand until I finally had the sense to get out my dictionary.



In the morning we woke and loaded out things back into our tiny car, and realized that the roads were not black with wetness as I had assumed the night before, but with a layer or sooty ash which covered most surfaces, this being the remnant of Etna's most recent eruption beforehand. This being the 6Th of July 2007, and the

volcano having erupted as recently as May 7Th, and being a fairly active volcano in general.

After a simple breakfast of hot tea and cookie/biscuits spread with some sort of chocolate butter, we explored a bit around our hotel.
From the small plaza near out hotel, which was also covered with a layer of ash, we could see the smokey peak of the volcano, still some distance away. While it had initially been proposed to take a somewhat longer course and drive a way around the volcano, we ultimately decided that at this distance, there was not enough to be seen to merit taking the extra time. So Instead we turned south and headed towards the ruins and the museum in Syracusa

An Afternoon In Reggio Calabria

After a wonderful morning in Matera, we arrived in Reggio Calabria. Reggio Calabria is an urban center on the very toe of the boot of Italy. What brought us was the museum here. There is information on Italian Wikipedia, which might be useful if only for the few pictures it provides, as we did not take any pictures in this museum.

This museum populated by glass cases filled with artifacts of the Greek era. Upstairs are cases displaying ancient coins, but the real draw is downstairs. Here, Amidst the old wine shipping bottles known as amphora are ancient Greek bronze sculptures. There are two heads, those of a philosopher, and a head from Basel (Italian Basilea). In a separate room lie the real treasures: two nearly complete bronze statues, known as the Riace Bronzes. Discovered by a scuba diver, little is known of the bronzes, either who they represent, or how they came to be in the sea, but they are famous because original bronzes sculptures from Greece, particularly complete or nearly complete are a rare find, especially as compared to their much more common marble reproductions.

Thoroughly satisfied with our visit, we headed back to our car. Along the way we passed a gelateria, and stopped in to the crowded shop to get a couple of cones. I struggled between an Amaretto flavor and a coffee flavor. After settling on the mocha, the man at the counter was kind enough to satisfy my curiosity by giving me a small plastic spoon with a scoop of the amaretto to boot, unasked. Italian hospitality. We sat on the edge of a retainer wall that circled the landscaping in a roundabout nearby and enjoyed our gelatto and the evening sunshine.

After our "meal" we headed to the port to board our ferry just across the way to Messina, on the island of Sicily.