Straits of Messina

We spent a morning and afternoon cruising the Straits of Messina. For those of you who don't know (and I didn't until I went on this vacation) the Straits of Messina is the body of water between the very end of the boot of Italy and the island of Sicily.

We woke up that morning to Mt. Stromboli staring at us from our balcony, welcoming us to the outskirts of Sicily. No not a giant Italian sandwich (which is also all I thought a Stromboli was) but rather one of the most active volcanoes in all of Europe. With minor eruptions almost daily it is called the "Lighthouse of the Mediterranean" While I would have loved to have seen it lit up at night it still was impressive with its smoke plumes and the kids were ecstatic to see a real volcano after we had just made one a few weeks prior.

Then it was on to Sicily and the tip of mainland Italy, which of course I had to be cheesy and touristy and take a picture of.....

(There it is, the very end of the Italian boot. Pretty much what you expected huh??)

Then of course my children kindly (well with a little bit of fussing) humored me as I dragged them to the top of the ship to take a picture of them with Sicily behind them....

and then ran them over to the other side to get Italy. Yes, it was quite a cheesy day for me and pictures but hey how many times are we coming to Sicily??