Just to prove that a cruise on Crystal Serenity is not all about food, it's time for some words - and more importantly some pictures - about the places we visited in the last three days of the cruise.
I said at the start of the cruise we would be visiting some drop-dead gorgeous places and I was so right. The problem with them, for other cruise lines, is that they were all tender ports. On Serenity, and with so few people on board, it was not a problem but on a ship with even 1,500 passengers it would be a real pain.
Incidentally, while on the subject of the people count, I found out that another 100 passengers were on board but not included in the official head count so we were actually 650-ish. Still outnumbered by the crew, but only just.
It was lovely in that there were never any queues for anything, but it made the fixed dining in the evening a rather sad affair, with a sea of empty tables all around.
First stop after our hectic day at sea was Taormina, or more correctly Naxos, as that's where cruise ships anchor. We landed at pier 1 (I was impressed that there were two), made our way through the terminal and into the shuttle bus for the short drive up to Taormina, which is perched in the surrounding hills.
Actually the coaches get you to a car park, from where you can walk up seven floors or take a lift up to the town, which is stuffed with beautiful buildings with equally beautiful balconies, jewellery and souvenir shops, ice-cream parlours and this authentic Roman night club!
The main claim to fame is the Teatro Greco, from where there are fabulous views over the town and surrounding countryside. Sadly they have done a terrible restoration job on it so these seats, where Ilana is sitting, is the only bit worth taking a picture of. On the positive side, I was delighted to see they still use it for plays and concerts - there were setting it up for something while we were there.

Next stop was Lipari, which was a maiden call for Crystal, which is in the "fortunate" position of sitting between a couple of volcanos - Stromboli and Vulcano.
There were any number of places selling excursions to Stromboli, but coming back about six hours after our ship was due to leave so they were not much good. And walking to Vulcano took two hours according to the ship's info (although I discovered that Christian, who gave me a wonderful deep-tissue massage, and Nick, the fitness instructor, did it in 45 minutes), which sounded too much like hard work in 90 degree heat.
So Ilana and I stayed in the town. It's a sweet little place but unbelievably expensive and after we had walked around a little, explored the castle and enjoyed the spectacle of traffic trying to dodge the tables and chairs the cafe owners simply put in out into the road, we felt we had done Lipari.
As we weighed anchor that afternoon, the captain announced we would be passing Stromboli between 10pm and 10.30pm and to look out for volcanic activity. As we were on the late sitting for dinner we were still eating as we went by and only realised the time as we bade farewell to the First Engineer, who had been hosting our table.
"Oh don't worry", I said. "They would have said if there was anything to see." How wrong can you be. Apparently there was a great show and we missed it because the ship's policy is to avoid making announcements. I'm all for cruise lines avoiding announcements for the sake of them, but when it's something a bit special like that? I'm sure I was not the only one who was very disappointed.
Our last stop before disembarking on Sunday was Sorrento, which always strikes me as the classy side of Naples. Again, where the smaller ships go because they have to tender you ashore.
The town is at the top of a cliff, which was becoming a bit of a theme, and there was a shuttle bus to take us to the top (all the shuttle buses provided by Crystal were free, which is a sign of an ultra-luxury line, but you might have to pay if you're cruising with others).
We took it up, wandered around town and then walked down to the harbour - and then went back up to town for lunch and walked down again. For the exercise, of course. And there are only so many trinket shops you can look in!