Day 1 and 2 Saturday and Sunday October 25-26, 2025 - Phoenix to Palermo Sicily - On our way again.

 

Here we go again.  A month on the road!  

This trip is what we call a Land Tour.   It’s 6 am and we’re heading to the airport.  Today (and tomorrow) will be travel days.   

It’s Phoenix to Philadelphia and then a connecting flight to London Heathrow and after a  3 hour layover, it’s on to Palermo Sicily for 13 days.

Afterwards we fly from Catalia Sicily through Rome to Cairo Egypt for two weeks.  We’ll sail down Lake Nassar and then the Nile seeing history first hand.  Then the last four days in Jordan in search of Petra.  And then it’s home just before Thanksgiving!

Follow along as we make our way through airports and walk the cobblestone streets of Sicily and the desert in Egypt 

Update:  I was up at 5 am, and we left at 6 am for the airport .  The flight to Philadelphia left at 8:35, on time.   With a two hour layover in Philly we left at 6:30 pm (3:30 pm in Mesa) and arrived in London Heathrow Airport at 5:00 am Sunday morning (10:00 pm Mesa time, Saturday).  To top it off the European countries all turned their clocks back at midnight Saturday night while we were flying to London just to confuse me more.  We started out 8 hours different but now it’s 7 hours different!  

Arriving at the airport in Palermo.

View as we were driven from the airport to the hotel.

I barely slept on the 6 hr flight to London.  Then we sat in Heathrow for 3 hours in their massive waiting area for our gate to be announced.   Our last flight,  to Palermo left on time at 8:10 am and arrived here at noon.  That’s 4 am in Mesa.  So, approximately 23 hours after I woke up, Saturday, we arrived in Sicily.  It will be time to sleep very shortly!

I know some people can sleep on planes; I’m not one of them.  My fancy watch said I slept a total of 1 hour and 50 minutes since leaving home

Our tour company had a driver waiting for us as we cleared immigration with our luggage and 30 minutes later we were at our hotel.  Our room faces the Main pedestrian street which was lively this afternoon. 

Looking down from our balcony onto the Main strret.

The hotel lobby

After a little unpacking, we’re here for 4 nights, we went looking for something to eat.  When in Sicily, shouldn’t the first night be pizza?  The hotel recommended a restaurant within 30 meters of the hotel and off we went.  Very good pizza, the first food I’ve had other than a coffee since 4 am.

Wayne and I split a pizza.  This was my half.  I left the piece in the middle of the pie . Just too much!  European flour is so much better than US flour. The crust was excellent and so was the prosciutto.

We sat outside at the restaurant which was in a square and this was the building across the way..

We arrived a day early so tomorrow is a great catch up day.  We meet the rest of our tour group and leader at a meeting at supper  time and have our evening meal together.  So until then, we are free to do as we choose.

Now to sleep!