SICILY PORTS & CITIES
SICILY PORTS & CITIES
| Giardini | Messina | Palermo |
Giardini
Cruise to Giardini-Naxos and Catch a Spectacular Sight of Beautiful Taormina - Sicily
As you cruise into the Bay of Giardini you can see Taormina in its hill-top setting, overlooking the Sicilian cruise port Naxos di Giardini. Once the site of the first Greek colony in Sicily, Naxos today boasts a string of shops, cafés and bars, which lines the long beach that sweeps around the bay. High above the bay in a spectacular position on the terrace of Monte Tauro, is beautiful and picturesque Taormina. Its atmospheric streets, full of bougainvillea-bedecked courtyards, houses, shops, cafés, bars and restaurants, add to the ambience, as do the magnificent views of Mount Etna to the west. It's also home to the worlds third largest Greco-Roman theatre.
Messina
Cruise to Messina, Set your watches! - Sicily
One of Messina's undoubted attractions is the duomo's campanile. Known locally as the 'great living clock', its midday show of mythological figures and roaring lions is quite a spectacle.
Palermo
Cruise Historic Palermo - Sicily
Palermo, on the north-west coast of Sicily, is the largest city and chief port of Sicily. Many of the oldest buildings in the city date from the period when Sicily was a Norman kingdom and show Arab, Byzantine, Norman, and Spanish influences. Outstanding examples are the cathedral (1169-1185), the Palatine Chapel (1140), and the church of San Giovanni degli Eremiti (1132). Inland you can visit Monreale, with its lovely Norman cathedral containing superb mosaics, or the beautifl Villa Igeia. Palermo was founded by the Phoenicians in the 8th century BC and was a Carthaginian colony until taken by the Romans in 254 BC. It subsequently passed into the hands of the Goths (AD 440), the Byzantines (535), the Saracens (831), the Normans (1072), and the Holy Roman Emperors (1194). In 1282 it was the scene of the Sicilian Vespers, the massacre of the ruling French.
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