Europe Cruise 2023

This morning we arrived in Palermo, Italy. It is Sicily's cultural, economic and tourism capital. It is a city rich in history, culture, art, music and food and apparently, is the most conquered city in the world. The population of Palermo is approximately 850,000 while the island of Sicily is about 4.8 million. WOW - what a difference from every other port so far…crowded, traffic, horns, lots of yelling, dirty…a little bit intimidating actually. As I mentioned yesterday, our bike tour was cancelled and while I was ok doing a bike tour with a guide, I wasn’t sure I wanted to try it without one, so we decided to walk the city. Our first point of interest was the Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele di Palermo, Italy’s largest opera house, opened May 16, 1897. Next we walked through La Vucciria market, filled with fish mongers and other delights. Headed down a narrow lane way, turned a corner and voila…the Palermo cathedral, one of the most important architectural monuments in Sicily. It was built in 1184 by the Normans on a Muslim Mosque. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the streets in old town. We came upon The Quattro Canti (the Four Corners) which is a square at a historic crossroads in the centre of Palermo. Paul captured a really cool picture of the four buildings at each of its corners. Next, we walked by the Fontana Pretoria and piazza. Figured we’d covered sufficient ground and that when in Italy, you MUST eat pizza…so we did. We found a cute little place down from the Teatro Massimo and ordered a diavola pizza, with a side of that’s amore, courtesy of the local accordion player. We continued to just meander up and down the streets again and then back to the ship to do some laundry and preliminary packing. Lovely pre-dinner drinks and chatter, and then dinner and chatter with the Aussies…what a great group of people with wonderful stories. It’s been a lot of fun getting to know them.❤️Read more

…another beautiful morning here in the land of Rafael Nadal, oh and Carlos Alcaraz. You’ll never guess what we’re doing today…yup, bike tour. We were actually booked for an independent tour, Formula 1 touring, but it was quite a distance from the port and we weren’t confident we’d make it in time so we regretfully cancelled. Today’s bike tour was actually offered by the ship…a bit disappointing in that the bikes were rather old and our tour guide really didn’t have much to say except how beautiful Mallorca is, and he’s absolutely right, but I do enjoy the stories that usually come with a guided tour. The harbor is packed with sailboats and yachts of all different sizes. We passed the main touristy highlights: Catedral de Mallorca and the Palacio de la Almudaina; and then wandered our way through narrow streets to the old part of town. Paul and I both noticed the lack of colour in the buildings. No Nadal sightings either ☹️ - granted the village he grew up in (Manacore) is about 60km away. One interesting fact our guide did share with us is that the population of Mallorca is close to 1 million but the number of tourists it entertains in a year is about 20 million 🤯. He also mentioned that there are a lot of people who own property in Mallorca but only spend a couple of weeks here…as a result of its increasing popularity with the wealthy, real estate prices have increased dramatically. We went back to the ship with the tour, had some lunch, and then headed out for a walk along the pier. The waves were smashing against the rocks; hard to believe how powerful moving water can be. As we were sailing away this evening, I noticed this interesting boat (see picture) - a transporter of yachts and sailboats…it lowers its floor into the water, the boats are ‘sailed’ in and secured, the floor comes back up and off they go. Great evening again with the Aussies - Malcolm and Jacqui, Colin and Jan. Colin and Jan are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary on board tomorrow 💕Read more