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.

Oceania Sirena Cruise Index

Mediterranean Explorer Cruise on Island Star, 2007

Saturday 25 August 2007. We are joining the cruise ship Island Star for their Mediterranean Explorer cruise. Eagle-eyed readers will perhaps spot that we did this exact same cruise in 2006. Ah yes - but this time we'll do different excursions!

We drove off to Manchester Airport and left the hire car (as mine was having dents removed) and Fran suggested checking in the bags before dropping the key off at the hire desk. So we parked in the hire car drop off place and checked our luggage and ourselves on the plane and we then found that the hire car desk was back outside in the car park instead of in the check-in area... Warning bells rang, but thankfully only in my head. "You realise we've just checked two suitcases onto an aeroplane and now we are walking back to the car park?" I said, picturing large uniformed people with guns wondering why we were taking this course of action. Either thankfully or worryingly the security didn't notice this...

Skip forward to Palma, Majorca. We got a coach from the airport to the ship and checked into our cabin on Deck 6 without any worries that we might decide to to anything faintly suspicious on the dockside. Then it was out onto the Pool Deck to grab something to eat and have a look at Palma.

We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing about, watching boat sail in and out of the harbour and watching planes flying down the mountain range and into the airport, adding to the compliment of passengers aboard the Island Star. Flights were delayed. Therefore so were we. We ate in the Beachcomber Restaurant which was the self-service eatery onboard. It was starting to go dark once we got back to the open deck.

The magnificent cathedral is way across the bay, but I was playing with my telephoto lens, resting the camera on top of my camera bag on the ship's rail to steady it for a quite long exposure.

The drool-worthy yacht apparently belonged to the King of Spain. We were sitting at the blunt end of the ship or "aft" as the ship's officers prefer to call it. There's a grill restaurant there and also people can take out meals from the main Beachcomber Restaurant, to sit and eat al fresco on the deck. This is our only glimpse of a port after dark. All other nights during the holiday we will be at sea before it goes dark.

Back on the main Pool Deck they were starting to think about their Welcome Aboard Party. We decided we'd have a listen to the band and join in the fun!

By the time we joined the party there was already a full compliment so we stood by the rail on the upper deck above the pool and along with a few score of others, swayed, danced, and waved from there! The band were quite good but the blokes doing the mixing didn't quite understand that voices were supposed to be heard over the instruments and the guitarist may as well have packed up and gone home. He may have been a bit uncertain of his prowess - when there was any sort of guitar solo it was played by the bass player, high up on the neck of his 5-string bass. Once this was done with and one or two people had fallen over each other, we were divided into two teams - port and starboard - and had a singing contest to see if starboard (that's us!) could remember more words to 1970s hits than the port side could remember to 1980s hits! By now we were at sea and the terrible caterwauling didn't disturb any sensitive Spanish ears... After YMCA we gave up and staggered down to our cabin... I mean... how do you top that???

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Mediterranean Explorer on the Island Star

A series of articles covering our first holiday on the Island Star cruise ship. We'll be calling at Palma de Mallorca > Day at Sea > Villefrance, France > Monte Carlo, Monaco > Livorno, Italy > Florence, Italy > Marseilles, France > Barcelona, Spain > Ibiza.

Click or tap each of the photographs below for the related article and photographs.

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Mediterranean Spirit Cruise on the Island Star, 5-12 July 2008

A series of articles describing our cruise around the Western Mediterranean with Island Cruises on their ship, the Island Star. Our Itinerary will be: Palma, Majorca > Day at Sea > Messina, Sicily > Naples, Italy > Livorno, Italy > Toulon, France > Barcelona, Spain > Palma, Majorca.

Each article can be accessed by clicking or tapping the photographs below. A link at the end of each article will bring you back to this index page.

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Mediterranean Essence Cruise on Island Star, 23-30 August 2008

A series of articles charting our progress and antics on a cruise with Island Cruises with my mum along for the week.

Each article can be accessed by clicking or tapping the photographs below. A link at the end of each article will bring you back to this index page.

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