Palermo

I was awake and up and about when we we still a mile or two off the coast of Palermo. The city was ringed by steep mountains, their tops wreathed in thick clouds. Looks like it might rain today.
We passed the breakwater and entered into a very big harbor. Our first visit to Sicily.

We were greeted by giant cargo cranes and we love working commercial ports

 Those clouds look ominous!

Car and Passenger Ferries

MSC Lirica which had left Valetta ahead of us, arrives after us

Lirica backs into her berth beside us

Once we were docked it was time to visit Sabatini's for breakfast

Our plan was simple. As we didn't have an excursion booked we were just going to get off the ship as we were docked right in the city and walk around. We hoped to find a nice outdoor cafe at some point and relax with a cappuccino.

The weather had other plans as once I left Sabatini's to go have a smoke on deck the clouds burst and the rain came pouring down, thick and fast, bouncing off the decks.

Here's a video of our arrival in Palermo

Dinner

Does it sometimes seem like all people do on Cruise Ships is eat?

Well you certainly get to eat regularly . No need to skip breakfast because you don't have time to cook it or forgot to go shopping. Someone else is doing the shopping and the cooking and the dishwashing. All you have to do is find where the food is being served! Follow your nose!

Another dinner in the Club Restaurant, served by friendly waiters.

Mushroom tart for me to begin....

Carol's pesto with linguini

Shrimp cocktail for me

Not sure what this was....?

 Beef tri-tip with BBQ sauce for me

For Carol- a delicious mild white fish called Orange Roughy

Dessert- wonderful Black Forest cake-reminds us of Germany!

After another wonderful, satisfying dinner it was time for a show. A singer came on board the ship in Valetta. From the U.K, her name was Michelle Best. She was loud and had a decent voice and did some jokes/comedy banter between songs. She was working hard to please  but I wasn't in the mood for so much energy and left early to walk on the Promenade deck and enjoy the sea air.

Before the show , some of the cruise staff blew up balloons and threw them out for the audience to play with while waiting for Michelle. Good clean, child-like fun!

In the morning, when we woke, we would be off the coast of Sicily and would get our first look at Palermo.....

Darkness falls

Afternoon Tea arrived, as requested at 4.30

What a luxury!

I followed that with Afternoon Beer up by the swimming pool

Perfect weather. A relaxing afternoon now that we were back on the ship and on the move again.
The only decisions facing us would be -what to eat for dinner, shall we go to the show?

We've had two wonderful port stops so far in Dubrovnik and Valetta. Tomorrow we would be in Palermo, which we knew little about. We didn't have any luck choosing an excursion so we thought that for once we would just get off the ship and explore the town on foot and have lunch at an outdoor cafe. That sounded like a good enough plan!

By 6 p.m. the sun decides to retire for the evening

and the lights come on

The deck loungers get stacked for the evening

Soon the decks will be even more empty as the 2nd sitting for dinner will be taking their seats at 8.15 p.m. There is also dinner being served in the buffet and many people like to just stay in casual clothes-jeans and tee shirts and serve themselves. Some take plates of food from the buffet to eat back in their cabins. At 7pm the hamburger grill by the pool (Trident Grill) closes. On the larger Princess ships the Trident stays open until 11p.m and features barbecue dishes after 6 pm, such as brisket and pulled pork.

All this talk of food is making me hungry-which is timely as our next event of the day is the 8.15 dinner!

Farewell Valetta!

We had left the harbor and were heading around the breakwater beyond

The Pilot boat was coming with us so she could pick up the harbor Pilot once his work was done.

MSC Lirica left just before us and is already sailing away in the distance.

Valetta recedes in the distance as we prepare for the arrival of Afternoon Tea. How civilized!

Here's the video of our leaving Valetta

Back on the Ocean Princess

We were back on board the ship and I prepared for the later sail away by charging my camcorder batteries as I was going to place it on the tripod and let it run as we left the harbor-this would free my hands up to take photos.

Directly behind us was a former Celebrity Cruise Lines ship- the Zenith. There is always a market for used ships. Some are in service for as long as 40 years.

At 4 p.m, right on schedule, we pushed away from the dock, using the bow and stern thrusters

Once clear of the pier we could use our main engines to move forward

We pass by Upper Barakka Gardens

We've left the mouth of the harbor which we last saw (in the dark) at 6 a.m.

To be continued....