Sicily, Tuscany & Tunisia 2025 Cruise

A holiday to Italy is the perfect chance to visit the regional capital of Sicily. A lively, bustling, noisy port, Palermo yet holds an unrivalled display of Norman art and architecture and Baroque churches, combined with a warren of medieval streets and markets.

With Sicily’s greatest concentration of sights, and the biggest historic centre in Italy bar Rome, Palermo is a complex, multilayered port that can easily feel overwhelming if you try to do or see too much in one Mediterranean cruise visit.

The best thing to do here is just to wander as the fancy takes you, sifting through Palermo’s jumbled layers of crumbling architecture, along deserted back alleys, then suddenly emerging in the midst of an ebullient street market.

While Milan may be home to all things chic, Florence to all that is worthy in art and Rome to historical grandeur, Naples can outdo them all in one count with its sheer ‘Napoletanità’!

Naples offers a mix of breathtaking beauty and a strong sense of life being lived to its limits.

Squeezed between Vesuvius, Europe’s second-largest active volcano on one side and the sulphurous springs and boiling mud pools of the Flegrean fields on the other, Naples and its famous blue bay is a ‘must-see’ city along your cruise.

Tuscany’s third-largest city is a quintessential port town with a colourful history and cosmopolitan heritage. Declared a free port in the 17th century, Livorno (Leghorn in English) attracted traders from across the globe, who brought with them new customs and habits, exotic goods, slaves and foreign forms of worship. The result was a city famed throughout Europe for its multiculturalism. Today its seafood is the best on the Tyrrhenian coast, its shabby historic quarter threaded with Venetian-style canals is full of character, and its elegant belle époque buildings offer evocative reminders of a prosperous past. An easy train trip from Florence, Pisa and Rome, it makes an understated but undeniably worthwhile stop on any Tuscan itinerary.

Whether it is basking in the Mediterranean sunshine or being cooled by the famous Mistral wind France’s second largest city and the capital of the Provence- Côte d’Azur region, is always a fascinating place to visit and a wonderful place for a leisurely lunch.

As France’s most important port, Marseille boasts connections with Africa, Italy and Spain. The strong mistral wind blows away all traces of pollution and provides a clarity of air so pure that many famous artists have been attracted to the city: Cézanne; Braque; Derain; Dufy and Marquet.

On arrival in Barcelona, you will be transferred to the airport for your flight back to Dublin.