The day started out looking like it would become nasty and it did. So nasty, in fact, that I left the Sony camera I’ve had with me from day one in the cabin and took the Olympus TG-5 waterproof camera along instead. A good move as it turned out from the safety of the camera point of view; not such a good move from the good photo point of view. The Olympus simply does not have the same resolution, the same ISO abilities, and, among other things, it does not have the ability to shoot as well through windows, since it has a macro mode and the camera keeps wanting to focus on whatever it sees on the windows instead of what’s behind the window. But, it is rugged and waterproof so the weather dictated the choice and I made due with what I could get with the TG-5 instead of the good Sony.
[Read more…] about Castel Gandolfo and RomePositano and Pompeii
Positano is a tender port as there is no dock able to handle a cruise ship; indeed, it barely handles the tender. The town is built on the side of a mountain jutting a couple of thousand feet out of the sea about half way between Sicily and Rome in Italy. The town is so steep and compact that the lower part bans all motorized vehicles as they just won’t fit.
[Read more…] about Positano and PompeiiItinerary Change
Just before leaving Positano the Captain notified us that the weather along the coast near Portofino is deteriorating and that it would be unsafe for tender operations at that port. To that end, on the 10th our stop in Portofino has been canceled. Instead, on the same day, we will be stopping in Genoa as weather won’t matter as much there as Genoa has a port where we can tie up to a dock.
[Read more…] about Itinerary ChangePorto Empedocle, Sicily
Porto Empedocle is in the Province of Agrigento on the southern coast of Sicily. It has only recently become a cruise ship draw and still only gets a few. That’s good in that we did not have competition for tour resources on the day we were there (Friday, 6 April).
[Read more…] about Porto Empedocle, SicilyMalta
We landed in Valletta, Malta on Thursday, 5 April. The sail-in was just before sunrise so we did not get the benefit of the red tint of the sun rising against the orange walls of the city. But, as the sun rose I could see how it could have been quite beautiful from a different angle.
[Read more…] about MaltaVenice, Italy and Korcula, Croatia
We arrived in Venice, Italy on Sunday morning, 1 April 2018: Easter Sunday. We docked among four other cruise ships which meant that about 20,000 additional people had just been added to the population of Venice. Needless to say, everything was fairly crowded. In my journal I recorded Saint Mark’s Plaza as being populated by moving mobs as the various tour groups jockeyed for space to gather for their information talks.
[Read more…] about Venice, Italy and Korcula, Croatia