Thursday, May 16th
Dinner last night with Captain
Here we are on the island of Sicily at Taormina.
He rang the bell right after the anchor had been dropped.
Life boat to be used to tender passengers ashore today.
This is where tender will drop us off.
Our tour today
Drive along coast
Lots of beautiful flowering shrubs and flowers every where.
On hill overlooking the bay
Now in old part of Taormina up on the hill top.
15th century AD church
Cafes and restaurants on the narrow streets.
Alleys were also picturesque
Our ship anchored in bay.
These were actually puppets.
Small Roman theater
Going up to view the Roman Greco Theater.
Small hotel entrance. Rates start at $700 per night.
Roman Greco theater built in 3rd century BC and reconstructed in 2nd century AD
Our tender waiting to take us back to the ship. It was a pretty wild ride back with the swells.
We dropped anchor just off shore at Taormina just after 7am today. There is no dock so, as I mentioned yesterday, we will be using our tenders (life boats) to go ashore. We are pretty close so ride should be 10 minutes or so. It is cloudy this morning and hoping they will burn of later this morning. I took some photos of the hill side village as well as the coastal village.
Sicily is the largest of the Mediterranean islands and has a population of over 5 million. The 10,890 foot Mt Etna is located here and some of our passengers will be going up to view it on one of the tours. Right now it is hidden in the clouds so not sure will be getting to see it or not. Mt Etna is the tallest active volcano in Europe and one of the most active in the world.
The Captain decided to let us be tendered ashore but we are just back on board (1:30pm) and the swells are really big now. It was not easy to get from the tender onto the platform, Our ship is even being moved by the swells. I bet he is sweating getting everyone back on the ship. Some tours were all day ones, Ours was only a 4 hour one "Taormina & Greco Roman Theater". Good thing we took our umbrellas as it was sprinkling most of the morning. So has rained in last 3 ports. Today's sprinkles actually had volcanic ash in it from Mt Etna, which is releasing some ash all the time.
To bad the sun was not out for this visit as the Italian houses and buildings are colorful and beautiful on the slopes of the hills. We decided this would be a nice place to return to and maybe spend a week eating Italian food and drinking Italian wines. Our guide said they have 300 days a year with sun but not today. It's now 2:30pm and the swells are getting much worse and rocking our big ship. I bet the Captain is sweating bullets hoping he can get all the people back onboard later this afternoon. Will be luck if someone is not hurt. Our suite steward just came in and secured our balcony furniture. Going to be an interesting afternoon and night.
https://goo.gl/photos/c4SjRiKfHS3jMBDG8
View from our ship
Roman Greco theater again.
We dropped anchor just off shore at Taormina just after 7am today. There is no dock so, as I mentioned yesterday, we will be using our tenders (life boats) to go ashore. We are pretty close so ride should be 10 minutes or so. It is cloudy this morning and hoping they will burn of later this morning. I took some photos of the hill side village as well as the coastal village.
Sicily is the largest of the Mediterranean islands and has a population of over 5 million. The 10,890 foot Mt Etna is located here and some of our passengers will be going up to view it on one of the tours. Right now it is hidden in the clouds so not sure will be getting to see it or not. Mt Etna is the tallest active volcano in Europe and one of the most active in the world.
The Captain decided to let us be tendered ashore but we are just back on board (1:30pm) and the swells are really big now. It was not easy to get from the tender onto the platform, Our ship is even being moved by the swells. I bet he is sweating getting everyone back on the ship. Some tours were all day ones, Ours was only a 4 hour one "Taormina & Greco Roman Theater". Good thing we took our umbrellas as it was sprinkling most of the morning. So has rained in last 3 ports. Today's sprinkles actually had volcanic ash in it from Mt Etna, which is releasing some ash all the time.
To bad the sun was not out for this visit as the Italian houses and buildings are colorful and beautiful on the slopes of the hills. We decided this would be a nice place to return to and maybe spend a week eating Italian food and drinking Italian wines. Our guide said they have 300 days a year with sun but not today. It's now 2:30pm and the swells are getting much worse and rocking our big ship. I bet the Captain is sweating bullets hoping he can get all the people back onboard later this afternoon. Will be luck if someone is not hurt. Our suite steward just came in and secured our balcony furniture. Going to be an interesting afternoon and night.
https://goo.gl/photos/c4SjRiKfHS3jMBDG8
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