Some island cruising - The Canaries and Sicily, then Milan

[RooFlyer]

I got a late checkout, so headed off to the cruise port around 3 but got there quicker than expected, abt 3:20 (boarding from 4pm). I was worried that I'd just have to hang around, but Ponant were there, checking people off and there were chairs set up in an old Magazine, which was cool and sheltered.

The road along the cruise port area is interesting!



Ponant people were outside, under a marquee. You gave your cabin number and they tagged your main bags and they disappeared. They couldn't find me under my cabin number (deck 4, midships, which I prefer). Oh-oh. But there I was ... 601. Yes, 601. I had been upgraded (deck 6 all 'better' cabins, including the suites)!! I quickly went to the app to find what type of cabin - ah. 'Deluxe suite'. Forward and high.

Who knows how they decide upgrades. I'm 'Grand Admiral' status (equiv to Plat on airlines), entitled to an upgrade and I found out later there were only about 10 GAs and above on the cruise (above is Commodore, P1 equiv).



The magazine where we waiting till 4pm, when they started the formalities. I sat down and there was an Aussie lady behind me. Oh! She had the most awful hacking cough. And a mask. More on that later.



The guy on the left was interesting. 'Travel director'. Not in uniform and his assistant to his right. The Cruise Director was absent for the first few days, so this guy - a tri lingual Italian - filled that role, but I never figured out his actual status. I THINK he came along because it turned out that many passengers had booked under Smithsonian (although it wasn't a 'Smithsonian' cruise, which Ponant do do sometimes). Many passengers were American and most had booked under Smithsonian. It ended up maybe 60% non-French and of these 80% American; 40% French. Very unusually, at least for a European cruise, during the cruise a number of announcements were made in English first.

The boat, which is identical to the Le Bougainville which I had just left. 184 pax capacity, I think we had about 140, which was comfortable.



'Priority boarding' for deck 6 .

Cabin.



Not a 'suite' in the sense of two spaces, but a ~50% wider cabin. Regular cabins would have their side wall where the bed-side edge of the table is.





Behind the suitcases is a large walk-in wardrobe / luggage storage area. Its glorious to unpack for a cruise!!







Larger bathroom than regular cabin; shower the same but in reg cabin it ends about half way through the sink here.



Complimentary minibar, which gets replaced daily and you can ask for your favourite spirits/mixers etc. I hardly used it, because immediately next to my cabin is the forward Observatory Lounge, with its own bar. So I just popped there to get a properly mixed drink.



Cabin service guy brought Champagne (never had that before, on arrival)



And I contemplated life looking at the view.

 

[I love to travel]

Next morning, went for a walk around Sliema waterfront where @Pushka will be staying later this year. I think it will be a good choice.

Wide walkway, with restaurants dotted around; some swimming areas (rocky 'beaches'). These pics more-or-less on the outward walk from Spinola Bay to a point where I could see the Valetta breakwater.

View attachment 504756

View attachment 504757

Looking back down Spinola Bay and St Juliens.

View attachment 504758

The waterfront is dotted with old forts and look outs. The Torri ta san Giljan watchtower

View attachment 504759

View attachment 504767

View attachment 504760

View attachment 504761

View attachment 504762

View attachment 504764

View attachment 504768

View attachment 504769

Valetta harbour breakwater.

View attachment 504766

My mouth is watering for my June visit. I have booked refundable accomodation at St Juliens (AC Hotel) , do you have a view on whether Sliema is better? Quiet and less hilly would be preferences.

 

[RooFlyer]

No need to explore the ship - its identical to Le Bougainville I had just left, so I chilled on the pool deck in the late afternoon sunshine.









The afternoon program



After the mandatory lifeboat demo, and Captain's introduction (he's French, of course, but based in Sydney and is 'relieving' for this cruise), there was Sail-away with drinks and canapes on the pool deck. Not something usually practised by Ponant in Europe, in my experience, but very nice on Valetta harbour.













All very well, but the Captain did warn that the seas would get up overnight, but would be following in our direction, so shouldn't be too noticeable ...

Over the course of the cruise, I looked at the Windy app a lot. Noticed that storms do get up on the Mediterranean - fairly localised, but intense.

 

[RooFlyer]

My mouth is watering for my June visit. I have booked refundable accomodation at St Juliens (AC Hotel) , do you have a view on whether Sliema is better? Quiet and less hilly would be preferences.

I didn't go into Sliema, but I think away from the waterfront it might be quieter than St Juliens. Although where the AC is is away from the waterfront so not as lively as where I was.

Call Sliema quieter, but not as 'done up'.

 

[RooFlyer]

As the afternoon wore on, I got the feeling that the crew weren't quite as good as the last one. Hard to define, but the impression got firmer as the cruise wore on. Not bad by any means - always obliging, but ?not as polished/experienced? supervisor not as tight? There certainly were some organisation issues. Many pax found that their booked excursions had disappeared. I found that 200 of my 350 euro total credit hadn't been 'credited' (fixed overnight).

There was a lot of coughing aboard. That Aussie lady I mentioned was virus tested as soon as she got aboard and obviously passed but it was a distracting thing to hear - very nasty cough, lasted for a few days. The sommelier had a bit of a cough, as did several pax.

The cruise director (one who is involved in pax entertainment etc) appeared after a couple of days - I believe he was crook. He was an absolute dead loss - Italian and complete opposite to the Italian Cruise Director I had on my recent Indonesian cruise. He was pretty formal and not very interactive with pax in a casual sense. I didn't attend any of the evening entertainments.

This is not to say that this impacted on my enjoyment - just noting that there is differences in crews, especially notable on back-to-back cruises on different, but identical vessels.

Passengers. Majority Americans, mainly of retirement age and the ones I met were lawyers, doctors, business people and their spouses. Very nice people, but many were not very switched on. I mean that's not confined to that nationality, but it was obvious here due to numbers (and, on occasion, loudness ). I met a number of the French people on board, again, nice and approachable but harder to get to know. Maybe 8 other Aussies, easy to share a table with.

I missed the usual singles get together - somehow it clashed with something else I wanted to do, so kept my own company for the first dinner. Two restaurants - informal on the pool deck Le Grill, and more formal a la carte on the deck above, Le Nautilus. Being an 'old hand' I knew that the prime position of the outside, overlooking the pool in Le Nautilus could be accessed in the evening just before they opened the doors from the inside, by using the ladders from the decks above or below. I nearly always ate breakfast and dinner here.

Lunch I always had on the pool deck - I simply don't understand those who dined a la carte inside when it was a lovely sunny day and a fresh 'special' was prepared on the pool deck.

First night's a la carte menu:



Amuse bouche and a very yummy pea and mint soup.



Swordfish tartare and squid ink spaghetti.



Vanilla panna cotta finger desert, and I bought this German Riesling/Moselle. Gotta use that credit somehow! There are the usual reds and whites on rotation, and they were pretty good overall. But the paid wine list is very extensive, and from around-the-world and reasonable value (esp when its free!). I saw few others purchase wines - mainly the Aussies, it seemed like, although I wasn't often inside the main evening dining area.

 

[drron]

In the morning, it was back to the South Terminal to catch KM Air Malta to Valetta (MLA), where the next cruise departed from. I've flown KM a number of times before and generally like them.

I discovered that my 'business value' fare didn't include lounge access (and only 20kg luggage, but I knew that).

KM117 dep LGW late 12:09 arr MLA early 4:04pm. A320neo, 1C (I choose a lot of 'C' seats these days as I have an issue with my R leg, that needs it stretched out a lot).

Eurobusness with nothing in the middle seat.

We passed Stromboli - a volcano off Sicily that we would pass on our cruise, but the filthy windows prevented any useful pictures.

View attachment 504715

But then Mt Etna loomed into view - magnificent! 3,300m high, Europe's tallest strata-volcano. We would be close to this on our cruise, too.

Maybe I had thought you had run into an old pommie ack ack. show but limited edition for Row. One only.

 

[drron]

Would love to. Probably need book early and Sunday best. Bocca Italian is very good but a bit on the high side.
Also good Greek, Thai and seafood . Our local surf club is pretty good pub style but very busy Sunday
Would love to catch up .
Ron..

 

[VPS]

My mouth is watering for my June visit. I have booked refundable accomodation at St Juliens (AC Hotel) , do you have a view on whether Sliema is better? Quiet and less hilly would be preferences.

I stayed in Sliema last year and it’s reasonably flat and there’s a pretty good shopping centre with supermarket if needed.

It’s much quieter than St Julian’s and restaurants not as prolific as SJ. Having said that bolt is incredibly cheap in Malta so less than €10 to get from one to the other.

Rather than hijack this thread I’m happy to answer any questions on my incomplete trip report

Thread 'Malta Sicily Belfast Cornwall and a few others in between'

Feb 26, 2025

After much "nagging" or "encouragement" I have decided to do a TR because the new guidelines for only one or two photos in the View from my office thread

I do have a reputation for starting and not finishing TR so we will see how it goes

I will do Sicily first then go back to Malta

This all started when I was offered some work in the UK and I was keen to get away from the Adelaide summer so everything is very last minute

I flew Qatar direct ADL DOH LHR and had a couple of days in London then a couple of days near Cambridge with friends..

Back to London then to Malta for 7 nights...

• VPS
• Replies: 68
• Forum: Trip Reports

• 

 

[RooFlyer]

I do have a reputation for starting and not finishing TR so we will see how it goes

Your reputation is unsullied .

From Valetta, the first stop is Porto Empedocle, to visit the Valley of the Temples.

The port, as with most we docked at in Sicily, was not scenic. I took this series of photos as we manoeuvred backwards and then sideways into the wharf



At most stops, there is a choice of included excursions, usually 3-4 hours, either by bus like here, or walking from the ship as in Syracuse. Occasionally there is an additional paid excursion. You get to choose 1-2 months out from the cruise and they are usually not space limited.

Here there was just the Valley of the Temples, a few km away at Agrigento, one of the best surviving sites of the Greeks in southern Italy.

The Greeks settles in southern Italy and Sicily beginning in the 8th century BC and the area became known as Magna Graecia.

It encompassed the modern Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were extensively settled by Greeks beginning in the 8th century BC.

Initially founded by their metropoleis (mother cities), the settlements evolved into independent and powerful Greek city-states (poleis). The settlers brought with them Hellenic civilization, which over time developed distinct local forms due to both their distance from Greece and the influence of the indigenous peoples of southern Italy. This interaction left a lasting imprint on Italy, including on Roman culture.

We were put in groups, and each group on a coache, which were only about 2/3 full each. Separate Anglo and French groups. Each group had a local guide, and as we learned in the course of the cruise, and even on this tour, the locals varied widely in usefulness in understanding what we were visiting.

Here, our group had a trained archaeologist with good English; the next one had a lady who seemed to like talking about herself more than anything ...

The countryside just looks ancient.



First up was the Temple of Hera - but also known as the Temple of Juno.

It was built about the year 450 BC and in period and in style belongs to the Archaic Doric period. Signs of a fire which followed the Siege of Akragas and the Carthaginian sack of the city of 406 BC have been detected.

The temple was restored in the era of the Roman province of Sicily, with the original terracotta roof being replaced by one of marble, with a more steeply inclined slope on the eastern side.

 

[RooFlyer]

We then walked along the old city wall - but it was hard to get your mind around it. Certainly a wall, but had Roman tomb niches carved into it. Turns out that the wall was actually a natural rise in the ancient days, but a lot of it had been carved back to current ground level, exposing the tombs, which used to be underground.









Along the wall was an area of memorials to victims of the Mafia - one of several we saw in Sicily.

 

[RooFlyer]

We walked along the wall, on a well defined old via towards the next temple when of course someone asked for a toilet stop. I gotta say. I'm mid '60s with prostate issues but the number of times some needed a toilet break was surprising. I recall this one as, afterwards, we waited for the group to re-form. Waited, and waited and waited. Missing two. Local guide and Ponant person (each group always had a Ponant person to keep an eye out for everyone, like now). The two never appeared. Toilets checked, calling out. So we kept on - sensible decision (you couldn't really get lost and there were other Ponant groups following) but the Ponant person was naturally very concerned. Eventually discovered that the two had decided to join friends in another group, but didn't both to tell anyone. Wankers.

Anyway, approached the Temple of Concordia, the best of this site and the model for the UNESCO logo (all this site is UNESCO World Heritage).

The temple was built c. 440–430 BC. The well-preserved peristasis of six by thirteen columns stands on a crepidoma of four steps (measuring 39.42 m × 16.92 m and 8.93 m high) The cella measures 28.36 m × 9.4 m. The columns are 6 m high and carved with twenty flutes and harmonious entasis (tapering at the tops of the columns and swelling around the middles).

It is constructed, like the nearby Temple of Juno, on a solid base designed to overcome the unevenness of the rocky terrain. It has been conventionally named after Concordia, the Roman goddess of harmony, for the Roman-era Latin inscription found nearby, which is unrelated to it.

Arguably the best preserved Doric temple in the world, after the Parthenon. But its name Concordia comes from a Roman inscription nearby. Its original dedication is unknown.









One of the reasons its so well preserved is that it was converted into a Christian church in the 6th century. Walls were put in between in the inner columns and arches installed.



Then there is this guy - Icarus. But its not ancient - it was made for an 'installation' in 2011!! My interpretation is that a lot of work in the gym does you no good, in the end.



A popular attraction, though.

 

[Zanzara]

Hi there. Really interesting posts. Just wondering if you can compare the experience on Ponant’s explorer type ships as well as the sisterships (Le Boreal, L’Austral, Le Lyrial etc. ). The sisterships are a a bit larger and designed for cooler climates?