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Monreale Cathedral. You may remember (from ‘ The Norman Conquest ’) that Roger’s Sicilian campaign started in 1061, when one of the Emirs (Ibn al-Timnah) asked him to come to his assistance during the infighting against other Arab rulers of the island. But this was not the first time that an external force had been invited, by an incumbent, to invade the island! You may recollect (from ‘ The island where east met west ’ ) that the Byzantines ruled Sicily from the 6th century,

Alix arriving at Palermo. I’m not going to dwell too long on our crossing from Sardinia . Richard has written about it, and I can’t really add much to it. Except, perhaps, to say that I did find it a lengthy night. We slipped lines at 07:00 and arrived the following day just before 13:00. The autumn nights are much longer; it was dark by 20:00. I need to do watches, which means I needs to rest when I am off-watch. But try as I might, I’m not one these people who can just put

The Doric-style Temple at Segesta, NW Sicily I have a soft spot for Greece. Greece was only my second foreign country to visit (after a rowing trip to Lille in France). I got there via first my first ever flight, from London to Athens on Olympic Airways. It was 1987 I think - when I was up at Keble College, Oxford – and I was one of about 170 Oxford rowers who descended on the naval college on Poros Island to take part in the first sea-trials of a newly constructed Greek Trir

Trapani with Mount Erice in the background. Missy Bear is moored about three-quarters up the right hand side of the photo. Why have sailors since ancient times favoured landing at Drepanum (Trapani) whence to climb Mount Erice (pronounced E-ree-che )? Ten points if you said, “For the sacred prostitutes!” The mountain has always had a cult of divinity to Venus. The early local tribes built an open-air temple there. When the Phoenician-Carthaginians arrived, they identified th

Re-launch! It was about 00:30 on Wednesday morning. There was no moon and the sky was a pitch-black shroud punctured by tiny pricks of light of varying lustre. The brightest and biggest had been Venus, but she had already set. The next most dazzling was Jupiter, following both her and the dimmer Saturn downwards on the ecliptic to the horizon on our starboard beam. The cruise ship Bonaria, approaching on our starboard quarter. Off the port beam appeared Orion, doing a super-s