Peter's Travel Blog

After the manic metropolis of Palermo, it was a pleasure to arrive at the little island off the north of Sicily mainland, called Lipari. We dropped anchor a short way out from the small harbour and little town of the same name. We didn’t have any tours today, so after a leisurely breakfast, we took the tender boat ashore to...

Roughly ten years ago, I sailed into Palermo on the Saga Ruby; my first ever cruise assignment, and my first ever visit to Italy. I was up on deck early to photograph the sunrise; the result was the photo you see posted at the head of this blog. My Italian is no more extensive today than it was then; I...

Following our late afternoon wave-crashing adventure of yesterday, we decided something a little more relaxing might be a good idea, so this morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we took a walk into the city of Valletta. A large double-lift, called the Barrakker Lift provided us with a painless, and swift, passage into the heart of the city itself (painless, that...

Sure enough, the weather was as bad overnight as we’d expected… in fact, I think it was probably a little bit worse. The captain had warned us of impending bad seas, explaining that we’d taken an unplanned, circuitous route towards Malta, to avoid a much worse storm that was currently raging further North, in the path of our original route....

Today was our first full day at sea, and a right rocky day it’s been too. A constant swell has had the ship rocking and rolling all day, and the outer decks have been empty and occasionally very wet with squally rain showers. The tables and chairs on the Verandah Deck have been trussed up and the swimming pool emptied....