Palermo, Sicily

Next morning after leaving Civitavecchia we were all at sea and on our way to Palermo, Sicily. On our previous visit there a year before Carol didn't step off the ship. I did and found the streets to be very dirty and the car traffic dense and the drivers undecided as whether to stop or not for pedestrians crossing the street. This time we had an excursion planned that in part would take us away from the city-but more of that later.

As always I am awake and on deck early when there are few people around.

Photos like these are reason enough for me to sacrifice an hour or two of sleep

The view from our aft balcony

The woodwork was varnished before we got on board and I took this sign off a moment later as the railing was dry

Ahoy Sicily!

The movie screen is dark and silent, as it should be early in the morning

We take breakfast in Sabatini's, one of the Specialty restaurants. Only passengers staying in a Suite can eat here so there are few people at breakfast anytime we go. That suits us as we like quiet and the level of service that three waiters can give us. Italian Opera or Neapolitan songs waft gently from the speakers to help us ease into the day. They serve Italian food at night but in the morning the food is American dishes.

A yogurt and granola parfait is a good healthy way to start. Mimosas and cappuccino help too.

Fresh fruit plate

Carol's poached eggs (without Hollandaise sauce) on an toasted English muffin with asparagus

Here's a video of our approach to Palermo harbor

Our excursion today starts with a city tour. As we are on a bus it's hard for me to get good photos shooting through the windows, due to the reflections so I make do with shooting video only. Although the city has some beautiful historical buildings, including the largest Opera House in Italy the enduring memory for me is the people selling their furniture and household items in the street-something they do every Sunday.

Here's the video

At one point as you see we drove through the part of town that has the name brand shops selling luxury goods-no old sofas on the sidewalk there!

We drove on, leaving the city behind.

The second stage of our tour would be spent by the beach outside town in picturesque Mondello....

We would have an hour here and it was nice to get off the bus and relax. There were restrooms, bars and restaurants. None of us were prepared for swimming in that blue water, alas.

A beautiful warm day. I appreciated the shade trees.

There's a playground if you have your kids with you

Gelato and espresso served here

Later our tour bus will visit that mountain and give us great views of Palermo below

I sit on a wall under a shady tree

When our time is up we walk back to the waiting bus

Next up-Scenic beauty on the Mountain....

Sailing away

Thanks for waiting for the past 8 weeks or so while I took another cruise and then wrote about it for 6 weeks on Cruisecritic.com

Let's get back to the Emerald Princess cruise that we took a year ago.....

It's 4 p.m on a sunny Saturday  in late September and we are about to leave the port of Civitavecchia, 65 miles North of Rome. Normally we are sad to leave Rome but we aren't flying home to Chicago today yet instead setting out on a voyage that will keep us in Italy and it's waters for the next 5 days before we turn away to the West and sail towards our final destination of Barcelona, Spain.

We've been on the ship for 4 hours and have settled in to our new home.

Now we are ready to sail and that is always an exciting part of cruising.

We are the second ship to set sail. first we have to wait while the Sea Dream II, a luxury cruise ship that holds just a couple of hundred guests, reverses from the back of the harbor and makes a turn in the basin to get her facing the right way to leave port....

Then it's our turn to slowly move away from our berth and head towards the breakwater to enter the Mediterranean sea

The other ships will follow soon

We reach the mouth of the harbor

And the pilot leaves in his waiting boat to go to another ship

The other ships still sit in port

Out at sea and a magnificent sunset is enjoyed

 Passengers gather on deck to enjoy a drink and the fading light before dinner

Dinner for us is in the Ship's steakhouse, called the Crown Grill. This is a pay to dine restaurant known as a Specialty Restaurant. Most of the passengers are in the 3 main dining rooms (M.D.R) or the all-you-can-eat Horizon Court buffet where the food is included in the price of your cruise. We like to start our cruises in the Specialty Restaurants. As we stayed in a suite our meal tonight was complimentary. Hooray!! Free is good...

Some Tiger Prawns

and a salad

My filet mignon cooked medium temperature served with herbed French fries

A glass of Malbec red wine is a perfect accompaniment to a nice tender steak

A wonderful dessert by the Master American Chocolatier, Norman Love, is the perfect ending to our meal

It's a peanut butter and chocolate flavor bomb and those are therefore peanuts on top. Amazing food!

Crown Grill video.....

After such a fine dinner and some smooth wine it only remained for us to walk on deck in the warm night air as we sailed at 18 knots to our first port of call-the City of Palermo on the island of Sicily, a city we had visited one year before.

Falling asleep was easy as we had been up all day, in my case since 5 a.m and the motion of the ship and sound from the wake worked their magic on us.

We slept with smiles on our faces.

We were cruising again!

While we are sleeping here is a video of our leaving Civitavecchia.

Sorry I've been so busy

I am in the midst of writing about our recent cruise to Alaska on Cruisecritic.com and will provide a link if anyone wants to read it as it unfolds day by day.

The photos show bigger and sharper than they do here on the blog so if interested follow the link and read along. It is on a forum board so people get to respond and ask questions. You have to sign up if you want to do that, otherwise you are free to read.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2403532

Hope some of you can join me there!

In the meantime thanks for reading the Blog!

Norris