July 9 Taormina

 Taormina is a favorite ancient Italian city, now resembling a strip mall with a Greek Theater. All of the buildings are old and scenic. This is a tender port, and we come ashore about 5km away from Taormina and probably 1000 feet lower. The taxi ride to the city gate can be exciting -- one year we had a self-described Michael Schumacher as our driver. This year was more staid. But still a lot of switchbacks on narrow roads.

This is the western or Catania Gate. 

Since we're on the side of a hill, side streets either go up or down from the main street.

Cathedral of Taormina

ABC (Another Bloody Church)

My personal transportation through Taormina.

Religious icons on window ledge

ABC

We were first tender off the ship and got to Taormina before the crowds.

Mt. Etna, with steam coming from the caldera

The view of Mt. Etna from the Greek Theater. Admission to the theater is now 14e, and there's no play going on.

The eastern or Messina Gate

Flowers frame the entrance

View of the bay. Nautica is the furthest big ship.

Five masted sailing vessel (although the funnel describes the most common form of travel -- diesel engine).

Another view of bay with resort located below us.

The cathedral square later in the day -- it got crowded and HOT. We were glad to return to the air conditioned taxi to go back to the ship.

From the tender dock, a view of where we were.

 

July 8 Naples

 We haven't been to Naples in quite some time, so it's off the ship to walk through the city.

Right where we're docked is the New Castle, New being a relative term. It was first erected in 1279. 

Palazzo San Giacoma

Galleria Umberto I, a public shopping gallery.

Piazza del Plebiscito  in front of the Basilica di San Francesco di Paola

Opposite the prior picture is the Royal Palace, also facing onto the Piazza del Plebiscito

One of the statues in the front of the Royal Palace

Via Chiaia, a shopping street

A side street

Educational opportunity. I wonder if this covers the marketing of influencers?

Entrance to the metro. It's a long way down.

Monumento ai Martiri Napoletani

Napoli Lungomare -- the Naples Promenade

The Egg Castle. Not named for its shape but rather for a mythological egg embedded into its foundation during construction.

I wait for the construction worker to clear my photo of the Fountain of the Giant when it became clear that taking his picture was the fastest way to get the shot.

 

July 5 Lipari Sicily Italy

 

 (I should mention that on July 4 we visited Pozzallo Italy. It was HOT and after walking about twenty minutes into town it became overwhelming. We found a taxi and came back to the ship. No pictures.)

Lipari is a city and an island just north of Sicily. We took the Highlights excursion and were treated to scenic drive over the volcanic mountains of the island.

  This was a tender port, so we rode the tender/lifeboat ashore to this promenade. That's the cathedral and archeological museum up above.

 We had to walk for 15 minutes through the main street of Lipari to get to the bus station. The roads were much too windy and narrow to get the buses to the port.

As we start our climb through the island we can look back to the cathedral that overlooks the port.

An overlook giving us a view of Isola di Volcano. The current caldera is at the top of the distant island you can see some fumes arising from a portion of the rim nearest us.

Not visible is another neighboring island, Stromboli. There was no Calzone Island. 

At the other end of Lipari we have a view of Isola di Salina. Just traveling to this location was an adventure as the road winds and switchbacks up and down the hills. And it's about 1.5 lanes wide. When encountering traffic it was a careful dance to get past.

A wall of crumbly pumice just above the beach.

The interior of the island.

July 3 Tunis, Tunisia

 A new city and country today! And being history buffs, we choose to visit Carthage of Punic Wars fame. Hannibal and his elephants began their conquest of Rome from here.

 First stop is the Tophet de Salammbo which is an ancient sacred area dedicated to the Phoenician deities Tanit and Baal. Carthage dates back to era when the Phoenicians ruled the Mediterranean.

The tophet is both a sanctuary and necropolis and contains a large number of children's tombs which, according to some interpretations, were sacrificed or buried here after their untimely death. Our guide gave us several interpretations, and archeology is ongoing at the site. 

One of the stella marking the gravesite of a child.

 

Excavation at the lowest level includes this cave

Just down the street from the tophet is the ancient Punic port.

 

Surprisingly, to me at least, the Catholic Cathedral is on top of the hill overlooking the ancient port. Ninety percent of Tunisia is Muslim -- so how did the Catholics get such a prime spot?

The street that leads to the port.

Our next stop is the Roman Baths of Carthage, the largest baths in Africa and third largest of all Roman baths. It's also emblematic of the eventual domination of Carthage by the Romans.

There was a display of the stella and container for the remains of children from the tophet. 

I did a panorama of the baths. Like all Roman baths there were at least 3 different rooms for hot, tepid and cool water. All that remains today was originally underground -- where the plumbing and heating would have been. The building holding the baths would have been as high as the columns that you see.

Closer view of the remains.

The baths needed water, as did the residents of Carthage. Rain water was erratic and a Roman's bath was sacrosanct. So in the second century CE they built an aqueduct 132km long to bring water from the mountains. And lacking electric pumps to lift the water it had to be a gentle downhill slope all the way. Impressive engineering!

This is a remaining section of the aqueduct. 

A forgotten theater of WW2 for the Americans is North Africa. The American Cemetery contains 2841 graves from that time. One wall of the cemetery lists 3724 names of soldiers missing in action from the North Africa conflict.

The final stop was the blue and white city of Sidi Bou Said. We were taken to the market and offered the opportunity to purchase something. Like most market just about anything was available.

Most buildings in Sidi Bou Said are white with blue trim. Just like Santorini.

These birdcages are the symbol of Sidi Bou Said.

Fortunately we were led to this particular shop -- no doubt an arrangement with the tour operator. It was fortunate because the air conditioning was potent in the shop. We were here for most of the time until it was departure time.

Arriving back at the port there appeared to be a falconry exhibition about to start, or it just finished. A guy with heavy leather gloves had a bird, and these guys were just sitting around looking hungrily at a small dog walking nearby.