Messina

When I started planning this trip my mum told me I should see the Riaci bronzes in the Museo Archeologico Reggio Calabria. It was a little off my route and I wasn't that keen - I've seen enough Greek statuary to last a lifetime - but I found a straightforward way to plan the detour in, and this morning I got to the museum as it opened and went to the acclimatised room before anyone else arrived.

I was slain. No sculpture has ever before done that to me, not even Rodin the first impressionable time I saw him. I was utterly overawed. I had 15 minutes with just me and two warders before a loud group of schoolchildren came in. I stayed until after they had gone then quietly left. The sculptures evoked a huge depth of complicated feeling which kept surfacing as I went round the rest of the museum. It is excellent - showing human society and artefacts through the stone and metal ages to Greek colonisation in a way that made me see the progression clearly for the first time. The pot I made a fortnight ago out of garden clay is very many thousands of years back!

I caught the fast ferry to Messina, an allegedly under-rated city. I can say after walking six miles - my way of taking in cities - that I disagree. Once you've climbed a lot of steps, the views across the Strait back to the mainland are good, even in cloud. And I'm very sorry I was too late for what is clearly the highlight - the 12-minute, mid-day performance of the glitzy astronomic clock on the cathedral bell tower in which a lion roars, a cock crows and angels process to music by Schubert (introduced during one of the restorations). I'd probably have enjoyed that bit of spectacle. But I'm not hanging around until tomorrow for it.

I've also seen some very selfish behaviour: people making way for others on pavements even less than normal, people on trams putting a bag on one of the very limited seats rather than offering it to someone having difficulties standing, and the worst pavement parking I have ever seen, especially on street corners. I hope this is just Messina not Sicily, or I'm in for rather an angry holiday.

Extras:
Colour
Pavement parking