We woke Friday to hazy foggy skies after 10 hours of much needed sleep 😴! Oh well, at least it wasn’t raining and the fog was outside and no longer in my head! The captain did a “drive-by” of Stromboli, but the volcano was all but obscured in the haze.
At 10:00 we went to the well attended Cruise Critic Meet and Greet. It gave us an opportunity to put names to faces and meet most of the people we’ll be touring with in the ports as well as make definite plans.
We took a “Godfather and Hidden Villages” tour with Sicily Life and thought it was fantastic. My favorite part of the day was the time we spent in Savoca, a tiny village on a cliff where major scenes from The Godfather were filmed. We got our exercise in this town…there’s only one way to get to the top, and that’s by foot power!
Our next stop was Taormina – a much larger town than Savoca and filled with tourists.
We wandered for a while, then set up shop right on the square for people watching, Arancini, and Cannolis!
Finally, we visited Castelmola, several hundred feet above Taormina overlooking Mount Etna. The village was charming, but unfortunately Etna was shrouded by clouds so seeing the mountain wasn’t happening for us.
Back at the ship, we spent the rest of our evening on our balcony with some red wine.🍷 The captain had promised a drive-by of Mount Etna to see the lava flow. He tried, but the clouds just weren’t cooperating so off we went towards Malta.
The World Through My Lens 
Love reminiscing with your dialog and wonderful photos. Looking forward to seeing your photos of the sail in to Malta… it’s an awesomely picturesque sail in/out.
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Ahhhhh… the doors!
Nothing like a satellite dish on a roof to bring you back to current times! Did you talk to any of those old men sitting around people watching? So neat!
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Loving your blog – your photos are wonderful! Just wondering, do you ask the people if you can take their photo, or do you use a telephoto lens?
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I do both. If you can’t see someone’s face or if they’re in a public role such as a performer or guide, I feel free to photograph and publish without permission. For other shots, I often use sign language…I catch their eye and wait for a nod for permission to proceed or a shake of the head no.
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Loving your blog. We are on the late June trip. Similar question to above, what lenses (focal length) are you walking around with. Keep up the fantastic read and images.
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Almost all the shots were taken with a Fujinon 18-135 mm “walk around” lens. I only took one other lens with me — a Fujinon 10-24 mm wide angle lens. I used the wide angle several times, but I would say the travel lens was on my camera 90% of the time. My goal had been to lighten my load from my Canon, and it was a success although the all purpose lens I used is fairly heavy.
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