A Day on Sicily

Sunday 21 September 2026. We are on a cruise from Malta to Barcelona in Spain which goes the long way round. It's a ten-day cruise and there are no sea days, every day will see us in port somewhere around the Mediterranean.

Today we have arrived at the island of Sicily, famed for its being the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It once had its own species of wolf - the Sicilian Wolf but that was driven to extinction during the 20th Century by deforestation and hunting. The last possible sighting of it was in 1970. Likewise there had been a species of miniature elephant roaming the island. Last sighting of that was around 20,000 years ago.

The island's other claim to fame, apart from the Mafia, is the rather impressive Mount Etna, seen here as we passed in a coach. It is one of the most active volcanos in Europe and is in almost constant state of eruption. Records of eruptions, some of which can last five years or more, have been found well into the BCE period of time with evidence of the earliest having occurred some half a million years BCE. It even has an old legend of being the home of King Arthur and his half-sister Morgan-le-fay...

Our first stop is Taormina, a lovely place that we visited in 2008 and whilst it hasn't changed very much, the shops have moved about as each year they have to apply anew for their premises. It's a Sunday today in any case so many of the big name shops are closed. What a shame...

Here coaches have to park on the bottom level of a multi-storey car park. The vehicle entrance is not far above sea level and the entry/exit for those on foot is on level 7 as the main streets sit more than halfway up a steep rise in ground level. Toilets are on a level somewhere in between and thankfully there's a lift to get you up to the top and back down again. The view from the top is stunning.

We bravely set off trying to keep up with the tour guide but I was struggling to walk so fast and we usually reached the group as he was coming to the end of eplaining something and then set off again. Having been before we knewwhere he was heading anyway and we caught up with them as he went off to buy tickets into the Greek/Roman amphitheater - more properly just theatre as the seating just goes around one side in a semi-circle rather than the full encirclement. The Greek theatre afforded patrons a view beyond of the sea as it was built right on the edge of the hillside, but the Romans added their trademark brickwork at the side and around the back of the stage, effectively blocking this view.

We entered this time at the stage level. The last time we had entered right at the top of the tiers of seating. I found the guide and said we would make our own way back to the coach park as we were dur to visit a hotel for lunch and the a mountain-top village. We stopped at a cafe for an ice cream and a lemonade drink that had a squirt of orange in it - absolutely lush.

Lunch at the hotel was predictably pasta - I'm not a great fan... Not even a lukewarm fan if I'm honest. Several options were on offer but they were all pasta of one sort or other. A bit like going into a chippy and all they have are fat chips, skinny chips, crinkle cut chips, a huge whole potato dropped in a pan of fat... I tried my best. "It's just flour and water," I kept telling myself and then I'd think, "Oh yuck it's just flour and water..."

After lunch the coach took us up to a village called Castelmola. The guide's pronunciation made it sound more like Castelmora. There would be many steps of steep streets and I'd had enough. The coach driver was happy enough to let us stay on the coach. We had the front row seats so had a good view and he just left the driving seat, sat back in the seats opposite us, put his feet up and went to sleep, snorting and snoring as the mood took him. I had the A4 sketchbook with me and, with time limited, opted to use a pen to sketch the scene before the coach.

I must have done something right, as several passengers when they climbed back onto the coach and walked past us said "Wow!" or something similar. Once we set off down the hillside back to our ship, docked in Catania, it started to rain heavily. We spent the night in Horizons bar listening to Tom and Maris. I'm not a late owl these days I'm afraid and if I try to be then I just go to sleep wherever I am anyway. We caught their 10:00pm slot and then had to leave them with one spot still to go.

Index to come...

A Night in Valetta and a Day Onboard

19 September 2026. Good Heavens! Nearly up-to-date! [FANFARE] Yes we are once again ignoring all bodily conditions and with a costly set of tickets and travel insurance documents we stay up past 8:00pm with gay abandon waiting for a taxi to pick us up at 03:00am in the morning. Yes, I know that the "am" signified morning but I want you to be aware of just how much effort it takes! Never have so many Police Interceptors captured so many speeding motorists with no licence or insurance on our screens in one night...

But on the dot of 03:00am (was so sleepy I couldn't quite tell if it was the upper or lower dot...) the taxi comes and we are off to Manchester Airport to wrestle with Ryanair's ticketless check-in systems. I have the App and I have the sweats, but we eventually only have to ask for help half a dozen times and we are through. It may be the future but is it really necessary??? As far as I can see it does away with half a dozen check-in staff and requires four extremely busy and stressed helpers at the machines each of which has a long queue before it.

The plane drops us off at Valletta airport in Malta where we queue to use for the first time the new European automated smuggler catchers. Finally getting the hang of putting finger prints on the pad whilst turning awkwardly to gurn into the automated camera I am allowed through with the wondering thought - do I have to pull the same face in the future every time I wish to cross borders?

We get into a taxi and are taken to our hotel for the night, the 5-star Barcelo Fortina in Malta's Sliema district. It's right on the harbour but not the right bit of harbour for us as Valletta's harbour is absolutely huge. We will need another taxi tomorrow. Also it is throwing it down with rain. The hotel was very nice, good buffet meals and that evening the bar suddenly filled with people who broke into a samba flash dance!

But this is why we are here. This is the Oceania Sirena cruise ship and we are about to get on it if we can find out where to go to check onboard. Some Americans came out of one building and saw us with our cases: "Sirena this way" came a call and they seemed to then disappear into a cliff face. We found an opening in the cliff and then found ourselves in some sort of cave with rows of seats and some crew from the ship who got us aboard in no time at all.

Miss Franny waits for the old limping crotchetty man with the walking stick as we make our way to the ship.

We got onto the ship twenty minutes early which was good going and went up to the top deck to get a view of Valletta.

Oceania is a new company to us, but is a subsidiary of NCL who we sailed with in 2024. I had been wondering whether it was the old Costa Sirena but no, it first sailed in 1999 for Renaissance Cruises who went bankrupt in 2001 and the ship was seized by creditors. It then sailed with Pacific Cruises first as Tahitian Princess then renamed to a less specific Ocean Princess in 2009. It joined Oceania in 2016 and had a $40M refurb before being renamed Sirena.

The ancient walls and buildings of Valletta. It is a strange mix of Italian and British, you can still find the odd red telephone kiosk knocking about yet the language they spreak is Italian in the main. But Malta is an island with a strong sense of pride and a George Cross from King George VI - the only one awarded to an entire population for bravery against the German forces in World War Two.

Sirena had a bar facing the bow and it was even called Horizons like the Marella ships Celebration and Spirit that we so loved and on Celebration sailed many times with our entertainer friends Tomas and Maris.

Speaking of whom - look who are onboard! I had hidden from them and then came out to say to Maris, "Hey! Give us a cuddle!"
She turned and said "Oh John..." then realised it was indeed me and not her imagination then "John! John!" and came to hug me and burst into tears. They were not far from my eyes too if I'm honest. Four and half years since being diagnosed with cancer - every meeting with them is a bonus and a joy.

So we'll finish with Maris's own photo of our surprise meeting! It was nice to see and wave to both Robert (Maris's husband) and Arlene (Tomas's wife) whilst they sang with their phones on face-to-face.

Index to come...

Cornwall 1992 Index

Memories of a week's family holiday based in Nequay, Cornwall where we are camping just north of the town in Porth. 'We' are my parents, Miss Franny and I and our own daughter, Gillian plus my brother Frank and his son, also called John. Join us as we frolic through sights and sites both familiar and less well-known.

Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to the relevant article. A link on each page will bring you back here.

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A Rainy Day in Padstow

Friday 21 August 1992. We've made it! This is the final post covering our 1992 Cornwall holiday. Read, enjoy, laugh if you feel the urge, then please close the door and switch the lights off. Next on the list will be an up-to-date 2026 cruise around the Western Mediterrannean with Tomas and Maris!

This is Padstow on a very rainy Friday. Mum stayed at the tent and Dad, Fran, Gill and I walked around in teeming rain. We went into a cafe and asked for coffees and 4 towels...

Did I mention it rained? A typical case of making the best of it!

There is a long harbour wall at Padstow that takes the broadside force of any storms, keeping the boats and trawlers relatively safe from any battering.

The shipwreck museum had two World War II guns outside. One had to wonder whether they were connected... A sort of self-continuing business...

Dad takes a professional interest, having been kept well away from instruments of destruction during his army days! "Er... I think you look down this bit to aim it..." he tells Gill.

Later in the day it cleared up. We collect Mum and walk into Newquay, wishing a last farewell to it's beaches.

And a similar goodbye to Porth Island for 1992. In fact goodbye to quite a chunk of what you see here as a lot of it has fallen down onto the beach or into the sea depending on whether the tide was in at the time...

Cornwall 1992 Holiday Index

Chysauster Iron-Age Village

Thursday 20 August 1992. Continuing our week's holiday in Cornwall, after visiting Land's End (first and last public toilet in Britain...) we headed for a totally different experience altogether. Chysauster is the site of an Iron Age village.

Mum and Dad got in as pensioners despite falling short of the age limit - in Mum's case she was short to begin with! The village is approached through a fogou. This would have been an enclosed tunnel but now the roof has fallen in and it is more like a narrow but fairly deep alleyway.

The huts here were still occupied as recently as during Roman times and are between 1500 - 2000 years old. Each had several rooms around a central courtyard and some had gardens at the back.

The courtyard of this hut has a water channel (to the left of Dad). The family's animals would have lived here. The water must still run along the channel as can be seen from the darker patch of grass at the bottom of the picture.

Looking from Hut 6. The hillside was covered in glorious purple heather. We all waved at a helicopter making it's way to Penzance. Whether they saw the crutch or thought perhaps that we were lost I don't know - but they circled round for another look!

Hut 4 had either a rather large hearth, or maybe it was the smallest room???

The afternoon was drawing on. As it starts to go dark we reach St Agnes model village and theme park.

We thought this was very funny but some Germans who were walking round behind us were not amused - especially when I offered them the twig so they could take their own photos...

Cornwall 1992 Holiday Index

My First, My Last, My Land's End

Thursday 20 August 1992. We have gone as far as we can go. Well to be honest we could go a little further but that would involve - [a] getting wet and [b] drowning... We decide against!

We are, of course, at Land's End. A rather stupid claim really as travel in any direction whatsoever in the UK or any other island large or small and you will eventually reach land's end. Just not this one... This one happens to be the westernmost tip of England.

Yes, Scotland juts out a little bit further west but you don't hear them make a big thing about it until you get to the most northerly top of mainland Scotland at John O'Groats which sounds suspiciously like the offspring of porridge to me. Likewise Northern Ireland has the Giant's Causeway and therefore feels no need perhaps for a first and last anything. Oh... really hard luck, Wales...

The Isle of Man too feels no need to make any similar claim. Perhaps because the first and last north, south, east and west would be so close to each other... But look at this. That's no far distant land you can see on the horizon, it's just an inconvenient row of clouds. Head off over that lighthouse and the first decent sized chunk of rock you find is America.

Meanwhile let's remember that this is the early 1990s and digital photography is still a meaningless term. Mum and Miss Franny discuss how many or how few photos they have taken on their instamatic film cameras because each photograph taken costs money to develop and print. None can be deleted and retaken in camera if you take a duffer, even if you realise Aunty Amelia has walked across just as you pressed the button.

That ruined photograph costs just the same to be printed as there is no way to say "if a photo is ruined by a stooped little old lady" (or gentleman but then probably called Uncle Scroat or something) save me the money and don't print it..."

Wow, raise your hand if you remember all the TV ads for Direct Line Insurance... That little wheeled telephone (yes kiddies, apart from the wheels that's what telephones looked like) was forever on our TV screens until that annoying dog came along to say "Oh... Yes!"

And finally there is the signpost pointing to anywhere north, south or east with the number of miles to your hometown displayed only changing from year to year due to new roads, the strange effect of air currents or Jupiter being in the ascendant. Or something... Clan Burke gathers dutifully for their photo to be taken.

Cornwall 1992 Holiday Index

Jamaica Inn (not in Jamaica...)

Wedesnday 19 August 1992, yes I'm back - a bit of an interval since my last episode but all to your advantage dear readers as we have been off once again "researching the world for future articles". Well - it sounds better than "on holiday"!

Jamaica Inn. Standing atop the windswept hillocks of Bodmin Moor it is the setting for the famous book of the same name - that is "Jamaica Inn", there isn't a book called "of the same name" as far as I know...

Here are Mum, my nephew John and Miss Franny who I wooed and wed after meeting her in an extremely low-cut dress... Right: now look, it was Miss Franny wearing the dress not me, ok? You can stop swamping me with emails now saying things like "At last, the truth!" and "I knew it!!!"

The sign above the door reads: "Through these portals passed smugglers, wreckers, villains and murderers..." All of whom would surely have fled at the sight of those yellow socks...

The Daphne DuMaurier room. She actually lived here and wrote her famous book about the inn and the wreckers, driving ships onto the rocks, smuggling the booty to the inn along dark tracks through the moors.

Our daughter Gill was actually halfway through reading the book at the time of our visit and was most put out by a huge spoiler in the shape of a placque on display inside the inn.

The inn served a decent pile of grub and no banging of bread disguised as biscuit to dislodge weevils, worms or squirrels (? well, you never know) was necessary. Gill looks a touch unimpressed - anything you'd like to express, Gill?

Cornwall 1992 Holiday Index

Practically Perfect Polperro

Wednesday 19 August 1992. Today we are in Polperro. You can go the boring way on roads which is around 36 miles or go via Fowey and take a ferry from Fowey to Polruan as part of the journey which diversion extends the distance to 47.6 miles but includes a car ferry ride. This alwys goes down well with the kids and as we are all kids at heart we always go that way!

I always think of this as the prettiest village in Cornwall. There are other contenders, but for me Polperro wins hands down. Cars are only allowed in the village if you are either living there or staying in accomodation there. The streets are so narrow that driving through them is a nightmare anyway as delivery vans can block the roads to any other traffic and streets can also be full of pedestrians unconcerned by your need to pass them.

By the time we got there it was dinner time or lunch time if you're posh. We found this cosy pub where the tables had been made for treadle sewing machines and still had the working treadles beneath the table top, which was indeed a table and not a Singer... We made sure the place was filled with the music of squeaks and groan of ancient metal joints as we practised our treadling prowess whilst eating and drinking!

We came out to find the tide had done the same - gone out... This is Polperro's inner harbour, beloved of artists but ignored this time by myself. It was only two years since taking up a pencil again and I wasn't ready for this amount of detail. See later visits to Polperro, you'll find a few etchings done here at Polperro!

The House with a Lifeboat. Well you would if you could, wouldn't you? If tempted, first ensure your house is close enough to water as lifeboats look a bit silly dangling from an inland back-to-back...

Halfway through the afternoon we found a cafe that looked ok so we all trooped inside. As we sat at the table waiting for someone to appear we were a bit surprised at the number of flies that were whizzing about. "Cor, there's a lot of flies..." I said. "Can I help you?" asked the woman at the next table. Oops...

Mum said the dwarf was about to hit her. The dwarf said she had turned it to stone with a single glance...

My brother, Frank, never a stickler for the conventions of colour co-ordination, but easily spotted due to those socks...

We have an ice cream from the Land of Legend. This is the entrance to Polperro's model village. It is well worth a look because it is not just a collection of buildings but is an actual model of the village of Polperro. Look closely and you can actually find a model of the model village!

We took the bus rather than walk back up the hill due to my foot. The lady who can't be seen but who is holding the ice cream said "Weren't you walking back from St Michael's Mount on Monday?" Obviously once seen, never forgotten! Can't understand it myself...

Miss Franny and Gill by the waterwheel at the top of the hill. In the dark days before indoor plumbing, this was where you took a wash. Tied firmly to the wheel as it turned, you were dipped in the stream three times before being released. Oh, alright... I made that bit up...!

Cornwall 1992 Holiday Index