Day 36 Friday 25 October  Messina day trip

Thunderstorms and lightning in the night, damp day.

Italian railways on strike over pay and conditions today, we are not sure if Sicily involved too, so made our way to Zapulla train station to check this out, 10 mins walk from campsite.
Train to Messina arrived as planned at 10.25. We asked the conductress if the strike applied on Sicily, I don't strike she said, but her English was limited, not sure how to take her statement . 7.50€ each to get to Messina, 90 mins journey on  old rolling stock , grafitti on windows.



Asked at information booth in Messina about trains back and any strike action, the booth man  said Italy is always on strike, here trains run ...
No one to donate too at station🤔
Walked quickly to main square of Messina  to watch and  hear the Duomo clock tower figures come in and out at 12 noon, we were too late for most of the animated figures but caught the classical music broadcast loudly over the wet square.



Visited the Duomo next door





and followed this with   a delicious lunch at Doddis, a Viennese, dark wood cafe famed for its lunches,2 courses cost €30 for both of us , good value and delicious -mushroom rissotto, spinach potatoes and pistachio granite for dessert.







Raining very heavily all afternoon , so went to the Messina Regional museum , a  new museum, built 2 years ago, fabulous Greek and Roman archaeology section, religious art, 3 on display were by Caravaggio.
A great find, we were both knocked out by it ...
Worth every penny of the €8 admission price
Roof leaking through the ceiling!

An incident occurred on the 6 pm train back to Zapulla, we couldn't locate the green button to press to open the carriage door when the train pulled into our station at Zapulla, a young boy kindly did it for us and got off the train; the  green release button was tucked away in top right hand corner ...
As we followed him out , the doors started closing, there were no sensors to stop them..I bruised my forearm trying to initially stop the door from  closing, but thankfully had the sense to quickly stop, and saved my arm!

We rode on to the next stop 5-6 km down the track, not a pleasant walk back, couldn't find a taxi in the quiet seaside town, so went for a drink in the Lazy cat cafe and waited for the train going back again up the line an hour later.
A friendly young couple stopped to offer us a lift back to the campsite  but we declined as it was only 10 minutes in the dark - Such kindness.

Weary after a longer than anticipated day out.