Malta and Sicily, Italy

The last two destinations on this past cruise were Sicily and Malta. Having never taken a guided tour, what’s called an “shore excursion” in cruise lingo, I decided to take two for both ports.

In Sicily we took a bus from the docks way out of town up to a beautiful mountain on which stood the remains of the original Roman town, built sometime in the whatever century. The “Agora” was clearly there, which I remember from the ancient history I learned in Greece, was the shopping center. Sort of a ancient strip mall.

The next day, we first took the bus to a great little documentary about the substantial history of these chucks of rock and dust people call the country of Malta. 7000 years of human history are preserved on those three islands, and it was one of the most sought after and fought over pieces of real estate in human history.

Then, we took a bus ride all around the main island of Malta. Almost 4 hours in a bus. In World War II, all of Malta was absolutely leveled by the Axis forces, who didn’t appreciate that Malta was the Mediterannean hospital center for the Allied forces, who they were trying to obliterate. Although most of Malta has been restored since the end of World War II, I don’t believe that a single road has been touched since that time. Even our smooth, luxury bus rolled, bounced and roared over the pot holes, missing pieces and seams that pockmarked the Maltese country side. The bus ride made me feel like I was reliving the Axis air raids of the 1940′s. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!

And I supposed it was the fact that I’d gotten up early for two excusions in as many days, or maybe it was because the air conditioning was so loud that it entirely drowned out the voice of the tour guide in the front, or maybe it was because of the relaxing ride through the country (BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!) – but I fell asleep.

I would wake up now and then, look out the window and think, “Oh, look. More of the same.” (if you’ve ever seen the Maltese countryside – which contains no lakes, no rivers, no streams, no springs, no rain and really, no source of water at all – you’d understand what I mean). Then I would fall back to slumber.

But I should be ashamed of myself, shouldn’t I! Here I have an opportunity to learn about the history of a foreign land and see all of it’s most famous tourist sites within the comfort of a luxury, very air conditioned tour bus.

Bite me. These tours can bite me. I think it’s the worst possible way to see a place. I don’t believe in passive sight-seeing. In fact, I don’t believe in passive travel at all. I consider passive travel when you hop on a tour bus, and get gently (BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!) led to one communal experience that somebody long ago decided that you must have.

Active travel, or active sight-seeing, is when you get to a new town, let’s say, for example, Oslo. You read a bit about the place, and you know that you want to see the Viking Museum. But you don’t know how to get there, so you actively go out of your way to find out where it is, where the mass transit system is, which bus to take, how much it costs, ask locals for advice, find the place, then actively find your way back. That’s an adventure! That’s getting an intimate view of the people and city of Oslo! And you were in control the whole time, keenly sensitive to the world around you – signs, voices, the layout of town, the little details of the culture. Not waking up even fifteen minutes (BOOM!) and wondering where you were now, and can’t they turn down that damned air conditioning?

And let’s not forget that the average age of the passengers on this particular cruise line is the age at which the DMV takes away your driving priviledges. These people couldn’t walk up a mountain if gravity changed directions.

It makes me, once again, so grateful to have been able to travel before getting a job and a real life. These people waited until retirement to travel and enjoy the world, and now their artificial hip won’t let them climb the hill to enjoy the massive view of Palermo in the valley (not that their cataracts would let them see the view anyway).

But – and this is a big but – I didn’t spend a dime in either Sicily or Malta, and saw more sights than I ever could have on my own (shore excursions are free for crew). I’m foremost for finding your own adventure in new places without the help of cattle prodding tour guides, but it was a benefit to see so much and spend nothing to do it. I didn’t have much of an adventure on these trips, but I saw things and learned quite a bit about these ancient and foreign lands.