Saturday 13 August 2016

August 4, 2016 – Palermo, Sicily

Today we arrived in Sicily. We had room service for breakfast. Food on this ship is gross and we received almost no protein for breakfast except for the little that is contained in the yogurt and milk that we had. But who wants to repeat their last mistakes of going up to the international dining room and having them make you never want to eat an egg again?
Trying a "muffin" this morning was a mistake. The oil stains they left on the doily indicated that we should not eat them. One taste confirmed this.
We left the ship and walked to the tourist information booth in the port. We asked the confused fellow who couldn’t figure out what language we might speak, if we could walk to a beach. He responded that we could not, but suggested one that was 30 minutes away by bus. He told us which bus to take, where to catch it, and how much it was.

We walked to the square and boarded the bus, only to find out that tickets must be bought at a booth in the square, not on the bus, unlike in Ibiza where the bus driver even gives change when you buy a ticket from him. We ran to the booth and back to the bus as if pursued by Mafiosi. We just made it. The bus was packed, hot, and generally awful, but we arrived at the beach at Mondello in one piece.

In Mondello, we had a sandwich lunch with Italian Pringles and a Coke. We then went to find a place on the beach. A nice fellow from a private beach directed us to a beach where you could pay a pittance for entry to a beach that had showers, change rooms, but not chairs or umbrellas—which was fine with us because we had our two Costa Beach towels with us.

The beach was completely sandy and the water was slightly cooler than Mallorca, but perfectly refreshing in the hot, hot humid day (we were both dripping with sweat from the bus ride and the climate generally). We swam, sunned ourselves, swam again, and sunned ourselves, and repeated the process a number of more times. We couldn't stand being out of the water for long as the afternoon Sicilian sun was scorching.
At the beach we spent most of our time in the water as it was hot, hot, hot.


The water was beautiful going from green to aqua to deep blue.

Little settlements up on the dry hills looked down over the packed beach.
Don't drop the phone.
We stayed as long as we could, then rinsed off, dried off, and prepared to leave. We caught the bus and this time we had a seat and did not have to stand the whole way. It was hot, but somewhat more bearable, even though a group of teenagers kept playing terrible music on their Bluetooth boom boxes (we thought this only occurred on really bad 80s movies). Two dueling groups of teens kept trying to having their music play over the other group on their Bluetooth boom boxes. Both groups selected terrible music.
Smile though the music around you is awful. . . .
Most of the sightseeing we did in Palermo and just outside of it was on the bus.


Back in town, we walked around looking for a place to buy some water for aboard the ship. The water that Bill had chosen in Mallorca was actually some of the worst sparkling lemonade that April and Bill had tried in their lives. We finally found a little fruit stand that was not closed and that sold water. We walked a little further and found a gelato place. For less than 5 euros we bought two two scoop ice cream cones and a large sparkling water—try finding a deal like that in Victoria. The ice cream dripped down our cones, hands, and arms in the hot afternoon but it was the best ice cream we had had on the trip. So delicious.
So gorgeous. Doors are the first thing that you see on a place, why not make them noteworthy?
We want doors like this. Why doesn't anyone care about doors in Canada?

Beachy hair while we explore Palermo briefly before returning to the ship.
No way that you can feel tall standing next to a cruise ship. This is our ship.
We then walked up to the ship and re-embarked. Again we had fun making fun of the weird wallpaper leading to our room.
What was in that drink he just handed me?
I'm going to kiss you whether you like it or not.
We had a shower, did some sink laundry, and ordered room service for dinner. We listened to Harry Potter,while April wrote in her travel journal. We retired as early as we could, because we had our excursion to Pompeii the morning of the next day.

Goodbye Sicily.

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