Well I've been home a week now and it still doesn't seem real that I was actually floating around the Med! I still pinch myself when I talk about going to Africa and getting to see things like elephants and hippos let alone getting to "sample" (not really traveling when one cruises!) a number of countries/cities that I never really thought that I would see. Anyway - here are some impressions of our last three ports and of course some photos of the things that made the most impression (good, bad, or ugly) on me.
Malta
This small island nation was home to British troops long enough that when choosing a second language it made sense for them to pick English. As a result we were totally at home and traveling around was done with relative ease! This was a destination that we chose not to do an excursion and I have to say that unless you are choosing something really time sensitive and unique that I would not recommend doing excursions directly from the ships. Our experience was that the city tours were just as good but were usually about 25% of the cost!!! That's a lot of money left over for shopping - something that you'll want to do in Malta!
Our day started with a bus tour to the Medina - an old fort with shopping! The views as we passed through town were quite stunning, mostly for the lack of green unless it was an irrigated field! As you can see in the picture the buildings are also mostly devoid of diverse colours but rather are mostly made of stone. The bright red dome you see is somewhat characteristic of the Valletta and can be seen throughout the city. The other patches of colour come from the brightly colored doors, shutters, and awnings. The blue and while shutters above are on a building within the Medina but are really only one example as there were bright reds, mauves, and yellows. I loved the architecture here as one feels like they are moving back in time to a magical kingdom.
The Medina contained a large church and a number of shops; unlike Tunisia we did have time to shop at this one and I picked up a beautiful silver Maltese Cross. The Maltese Cross is one of the most important tourism products made on the island - or so our guide told us! They are known for the silver filigree work and as most of you will know, it is hard for me to pass up silver of any kind!! Malta is also known for its beautiful blown glass and mom and I took advantage of this! She picked up some gorgeous necklaces with colours that were more vibrant that I've ever seen in glass. I picked up another cross as a gift (won't say for whom as I haven't delivered it yet!) but was saving myself as the next stop on the tour was the glass factory and who knew what kind of delights were waiting for me there!
The glass factory is a really a huge store of handmade products (FYI: There is a huge "seconds" selection for those who are a little more price conscious and who do not care if there are little 'errors' that give a piece some added uniqueness) and the best part is that the work room is attached and we were able to actually watch artists at work! The heat in the room was intense and the men (and boys but no women??) worked with a level of concentration that was admirable given that they were also a tourism attraction! I tried to picture what it would be like to teach a class with 20 people at the back room constantly taking my picture!!
Anyway - the whole experience was great and the shopping options?! Well I broke out the credit card for this one but didn't do too much damage!! I picked up a blown glass pestle and mortar that will go brilliantly with the one I picked up in France and the one I brought back from Fiji (seeing a pattern develop here...beyond being a really lucky woman to have travelled to these places!!). The bowl is made of clear glass about one inch think and it has orange, while, and purple swirls through it. The pestle is a single piece of glass and is a cloudy white colour. Mom predicted that I would end up paying for my luggage as it also weights a ton but that didn't prevent me from getting it. I also picked up a handful of handblown beads in the hope that one of my friends who beads will teach me how to make something with them!
After the factory we headed back to the harbour and while we were given an opportunity to get off in the centre of Valetta we chose to head back to the jetty to do some more shopping and to get some lunch. This turned out to be a great choice as we were able to pick up some duty free products (cigs for mom's friend John - 13 Euro for a carton! Wine for me!) and listen to a performance from the University of London's big band. It appeared that they were on some kind of field school/tour - I didn't talk to anyone but did film them for Tom! Lunch was a wonderful - mom had some kind of Rabbit stew that is a traditional Maltese dish and I think (can't remember 100%) had a burger! The best part of the meal was the extra plate that contained things like stuffed olives (I skipped those but heard they were good) and seasoned feta cheese (you guessed it - I didn't skip that!!). We did our last minute shopping - me for english books and chocolate and mom for a flag for Helen!
Malta is definitely a destination worth visiting as a primary destination. There history here is tangibly alive and the topography and geography are unique. I loved the prickly pear hedges and loved Maltese wine; unfortunately I've finished the one bottle I brought back! Oh well - some time in my future I will return. There is also supposed to be lovely snorkeling and beaches but we didn't make it to those beaches/islands as part of our adventure! For those of you from the coast - you notice that the plane on the right has the same logo as our own Harbour air...don't now if they they are related but all the branding is the same!! That would be a hellishly long sea plane ride - Nanaimo, Canada to Valetta, Malta!!
Sicily
The name Sicily evokes immediate thoughts of "family" and/or "mafia" and while there are persistent rumors and innuendoes of such things it was the landscape that enthralled me during our short excursion that started in Messina. This is one of those ports where a guided tour from the ship may be necessary as the stay was only 4 hours and our destination - Mount Etna - was about an hours drive away from the ship. So my Sicily experience consisted of: getting off the ship and onto a bus, driving to Mount Etna (Europe's most active volcano), walking around Etna and doing some shopping (pocketed a couple of Etna lava samples too), getting back on the bus and returning to the ship! Not a lot of exploration and when you throw in a talkative (i.e., she managed to talk for about one hour without a breath and felt the need to talk to us as if we were five year olds with hearing issues...everything was repeated at least once!!) tour guide you have a heck of a day! This would be a good time to let you in on my personal survival tip for bus rides and guided tours (only ones where the guide cannot actually see you) - an ipod with a fully charged battery and either a good rock playlist or an engaging audiobook! It helps if you are traveling with someone who does not keep talking to you despite the headphones (mom struggled with this) and who is listening so you don't miss any important directions (mom struggled with this too as she tended to sleep or focus on the sudoku puzzles!).
Sicily is an extremely mountainous island that seems to leap from the ocean. Unlike Malta it was lush and evidently has rich fertile soils as there was agriculture everywhere! At the closest point it is only three kilometers from the Italian Peninsula (the toe of the boot) and like here there is talk of a bridge. According to the Lonely Planet there is funding set aside for its construction and even EU approval but fears of corruptions and ever changing political will seem to be the two largest stumbling blocks. I didn't have an opportunity to ask any locals what their thoughts on it were but I know that as an Islander the last thing I want is to become an appendage to the mainland; I digress and will now return to regular programming...Mount Etna! The volcano is still active but we were repeated informed that it is a "safe" volcano as it does not explode like Mount St. Helen's did, rather Etna is likely to only produce large lava flows that are "slow" moving and easily avoidable. We were also not taken to the area that was currently active - the are in the photos was the site of a flow in 2001 which took out the tourism infrustucture we visited including the gondola and ski-lift! That's right, if you ever happen to be on Sicily in the winter you can ski on Mount Etna.
The picture on the left is of an old crater that produced a flow earlier than the one that did damage in 2001 (I'm sure we were told when but I've already told you about the ipod!!). There little bits of growth are extremely hardy flowers and a few dandelions! The little flecks are people walking around - like most things cruise related we arrived with at least six other full busses of folks. This one was an interesting destination as the age mix was much broader and it was interesting to watch older Italian men and women walking around a volcano in their 'going to church' clothing and lovely (used to be anyway) Italian leather sandals! Mike and Cath were also on this tour with us and like us they were wearing outdoor gear and runners!
Like ever where else we went - this was an opportunity to do a little shopping. I pick up some Etna Rosa wine and mom who has turned into a jewelry junky purchased some great stuff including a necklace and earrings to wear to Cam's wedding!! Sicily and the Etna area are known for honey so I tried to get in the line to pick some up for dad but after being elbowed out of the way for a third time (perhaps Dorrianna will show me how to maneuver like the older Italian ladies...they have shopping down to an art!!) I gave up!
The drive home was pretty spectacular as I paid more attention to the diversity of the landscape and the ability of the Sicilian people to turn a steep mountainside into farmable land!! To suggest that the Sicilian people have mastered terraced gardening is similar to saying that the First Nations of the Island know something about smoking salmon!! Again, Sicily is mountainous and the region we drove through simply leads out of the ocean with little thought to how humans are going to navigate the landscape! In some places you see the terraced gardens that are so steep that your calfs burn simply looking at them and other places there are tower cliffs that have houses on top of them!! We saw one neighbourhood that was so high and so steep that I'm sure residents could paraglide off their decks! This is another place that I want to return to - oh yeah... the wine from Sicily is AMAZING! We tried a couple of varieties on the cruise. I haven't tried my Etna Rosa yet I'm confident that it too will be great!
Rome
is sure to be cliché or some weak attempt to communicate to you the shear magnitude of this city. History is a living thing but at the same time there is a level of modernity that is inescapable. Our day started about 1 1/2 hours from Rome in the port city of Citiavecchia and included another long bus drive - fortunately there was no commentary on this one! We were dropped off underground and told to make sure were were back there at the designated time (we had about 5 hours in Rome) - this stressed us both out as we had no idea where we were!!! This stress was quickly over however when we discovered that we had been dropped off at St Peter's Square!
Now you all know that I'm not what one would call religious and I'm most definitely not Catholic but I have to say that this was a spiritual place! Of course that may be due to the fact that I saw more Nuns and Priests in an hour than I had in my entire 36 years prior but it was more than that. I love the architecture and loved that we could get close but it was when you see things on this scale and you realize how long this place has been a centre for some many believers that you have to ask yourself..."What did Dan Brown say about this place again?" Sorry - I kept having Da Vinci Code moments there! I haven't watched Angles and Demons yet but will soon (FYI: The books are so much better than the movies so read them!!). Seriously though, there were thousands of folks lined up to get into the Basilica and millions visit Vatican City (we did not go inside) each year - this is definitely a place of extreme power.
As we did in Genoa, Barcelona, and Valetta, we quickly hopped onto a hop on - hop off city bus and were on our way to the Colosseum! We were give a tourist map for the drive in and without a scale it made it appear that St. Peter's and the Colosseum were huge distances from each other (hence the bus tour) and due to a strike in the metro buses and a subsequent increase in traffic it turned out that they were a two hour drive from each other. However, once we hit the Colosseum and walked to a couple of other sites we quickly realized that we could walk back in about 20 minutes!!! Every time you turn around in Rome there is some building, obelisk (many with hieroglyphics), church (shocking I know), monument, or archeological dig! St. Peter's definitely made an impression but by FAR the most striking was the Colosseum! Driving by it on the bus was brilliant as it allow me to get some shots with the whole building and no close people! Like everything else in Rome the cues to get in were crazy and we had already decided that the inside was for another trip, this left me to simply marvel in the scope and scale of this building that dominants the current landscape in ways that rival how the activities once held within this building must have dominated the people of Rome so long ago.
This is one of those places that people must visit to truly sense how powerful and dominant a landmark it really is. I had similar feelings visiting the Mayan Ruins of Tikal but really have not experienced it anywhere else. Construction of the Colosseum would, today, be a monumental undertaking and an engineering masterpiece when you take large hydraulic cranes out of the picture!! To know that this place has withstood the ever changing society of Roma!
The white marble monument on the left is located a 2 minute walk from the Colosseum and while extremely beautiful it was simply the forgotten neighbour! Between these two landmarks was a section of active excavation! We stopped a took some pictures and wondered about the people who wandered amongst the columns so many years ago. We saw the statue of Caesar and like any good Canadian kid I immediately started quoting the Shakespeare I memorized while in high school! Of course I remember Hamlet and Macbeth more than Caesar but I do know to 'be ware the ides of March' and to watch our for backstabbing betrayal "et tu Brutus?"
Since mom wasn't up for a gelato and street salami we decided to head to a little roadside cafe for lunch...we ended up in Scholars Irish Pub!! This turned out to be a great choice as they had a great Irish cider on tap and air conditioning (it was about 35 degrees) and I got to watch a game of Hurling (not a very pleasant sounding game I know!). I had learned about this game from an Irish guy in Ghana but really didn't understand it until I saw it...think lacrosse with canoe paddles crossed with baseball! Oh yeah - through in some Aussie rules football!! After lunch it was a walk back to St. Peter's a little more shopping - Italians make some beautiful blown glass and I picked up a great pair of earrings and a matching necklace from the actual artisan (I like that kind of shopping). Mom picked up some more goods for Cam and another couple of flags for Helen - this time she got one for the Vatican and an EU flag.
Okay that's a really quick run down of our last three ports. I won't bore you with the final details of the drive back to the ship and will save the details of our last couple of days for another posting. Sorry for any major typos (not enough time for a good proofing as mom and cam have each called 5 times while writing this - nothing like a wedding to rack up the phone bill) as I've now got "nails" for my bro's wedding! I may have time tomorrow for the final European post but given that most of you following are family or close friends I'll continue adding to this from Ontario where I head Wednesday for the next in my series of adventures! This time mom, dad, and Granny Forbes are all joining the circus that will be Cam's wedding!! Stay tuned for my insanity! The pictures below are of Rome and our dinner companions from the final Gala night on the Splendida.
Ag
Traffic in Rome - next time I will take a scooter, those suckers get through everywhere!!
There's something about black and whites that make buildings that much more imposing!
The 'trouble makers' from table 615!
