Tuesday, November 22 – Catching Up

The past few days have been relatively quiet.  No one seemed to notice that the blog was not posted which makes one wonder if anybody is actually reading it.  No matter, it serves as a journal for us for when we forget what we did.

Sunday was a sea day and the one-week anniversary of D’s Italian escapade.  We steamed across the Med toward the port of Valletta, Malta, where we will spend a day before going to the neighboring island [Gozo?] and the town of Magrr.

Monday was beautiful and warm.  Skies were clear and the temperature was about 70F.  We had no exotic plans for our day in Valletta because we had a rather extensive and fascinating tour in 2009.  At that time, we saw mostly remnants of early Malta including Hagar Qim, stone monoliths reminiscent of Stonehenge.  We also visited a complex of pre-historic caves and a subterranean hand-hewn complex under a house in the city.  The latter was discovered by accident when workers were doing renovations to the house.  Anyway…

We expected to go ashore and wander around before finding someplace for lunch.  We did that but with a twist.  Roger and Barbara joined us [how could we say “no?”], so we did not do the walking and exploring we had anticipated.  Barbara uses a walker which limited our range because the streets are not level or especially smooth.  After leaving the ship and making our way through the terminal, we followed the road for perhaps a half-mile before coming to the elevator [1 euro] which took us up to street level.  We walked through a park and then stalled.  No one knew where to go and Barbara thought it was time to eat [12:15].  The group dithered about where to eat until D selected the Italian café we had just passed.  We sat outside, of course, and watched the tourists while we ate and talked.  When we were done, we retraced our steps and returned to the ship. Our big adventure in Valletta.

We stayed in Valletta’s harbor until 6:30 this morning when we started for Mgarr [Muh-jar].  We were at anchor before 10 a.m. when tender service began for those going ashore.  MA doesn’t do tenders anymore and D is not allowed out on his own since Florence, so we spent a quiet day reading and watching the water.  After dinner, we went to the theater to see Bad Moms.

TOMORROW – Palermo, Italy