6 October to 8 October –At Sea, Catania, Italy, Solarmo, Italy (Pompeii)

eylarson

3 days ago

2 min read

6 October—Sea Day, our first on Virgin Voyages. The usual sea day activities, gym, lunch and some sunbathing, and a meal and snack or two or three. Dinner tonight was at the Test Kitchen. Five courses of small plates paired with small cocktails.

7 October—Catania Italy and a Viator scheduled walking food tour. All very good, with a mixed small paper bag of fried seafood, arancino (Not a misspelling in Sicily they end with an “O” for both the fired rice dish and the ricotta stuffed shells, cannoli) As you can see from the picture these aren’t the small cocktail size rice balls we are used to. It was a full meal with ragu sauce and mozzarella cheese inside. We went from this to a warm, puff pastry wrapped sandwich of ham, cheese and tomato sauce, cannolo and finally granita. (Finely shaved, flavored ice, sort of an adult snow cone.) We also passed by a Saint Francis church before we waddled back to the ship. Dinner at Extra Virgin, the Italian restaurant. Highlights were the fried artichoke and the meatball appetizer. After the heavy lunch that was more than enough so we just picked at the risotto and the pork cheeks.

8 October—Up and at ‘em for a bus ride to Pompeii. Many improvements since I was last here in 2013. I lost my phone on that trip—Didn’t find it on this one either. Fortunately, the rain held off until we arrived back at the ship. Virgin did not handle the weather very well at all. Only one security line open, the uncovered gangplank ended in a 3” puddle on the pier with a line of people off of three full tour busses standing in the wind and rain. Soup at lunch was warm and very good.