I Admit It, I Didn’t Get Off the Ship in Egypt. But I’ll Be Back!

Days 86-90, 2025 European Odyssey

Monday to Friday, Sept. 22-26, 2025; Valletta, Malta, and Alexandria, Egypt.

I’m not sure I can say I went to Egypt on this cruise. Yes, we had an overnight call in Alexandria, where more than 1,700 passengers lined up before sunrise for Holland America excursions. There were a few hundred more on privately arranged tours. But I never got off the ship to set foot in Egypt.

I hadn’t really planned not to get off the ship, but in my experience, Alexandria is a crowded and chaotic port city if you don’t have a tour. I’m just not comfortable walking around on my own. I had tried to put together a tour to Rosetta, about an hour away where the Nile ends at the Mediterranean Sea and where the Rosetta Stone was discovered, but couldn’t find others interested in joining me.

When the Volendam called at Alexandria last fall, I repeated my 2013 overnight in Cairo, as my memories had faded. This spring, the Zuiderdam was only in Alexandria for a day, and while most passengers went to see the pyramids, I toured Alexandria. I’ll be back again next fall, so this seemed a good time to take a pass.

With virtually everyone ashore on Thursday, I enjoyed having the Nieuw Statendam to myself. For two hours, I was the only passenger in the Crow’s Nest. Later I had my choice of tables in the usually packed Grand Dutch Café. I caught up on all sorts of what I call computer chores and spent the rest of the two days (and the two sea days before Egypt) painting.

As I was finishing dinner Thursday evening, I knew the buses to the pyramids had returned. Passengers with backpacks and wearing normally prohibited shorts arrived in large groups. I’m sure they were instructed to head straight to eat from their 12-hour tours.

Other passengers booked overnight excursions, including about 80 with Alex City Travel, an agency I had recommended on our Cruise Critic roll call months ago. In 2013 when I first cruised to Egypt, Alex City operated the independent tour I took and impressed me with its level of service and the quality of its guides, all with degrees in Egyptology.

On Monday, I followed the opposite tactic and spent the day ashore in Malta, despite having been there twice in the last year and with two more stops this fall. Last December high winds canceled my dghajsa (pronounced something like “die’sa”) boat excursion around the harbor, so I rebooked for today, and we had stunning weather.

Each of the traditional Maltese boats holds only six passengers, who must carefully board so as to not rock the boat. These days outboard motors carried us across Valletta Harbor to Vittoriosa.

It seems every one of the many peninsulas surrounding Valletta is a separate city, but to American eyes it all seems to be one, with marinas filled with sailboats and superyachts.

The tour was rated strenuous, but our guide kept talking about a leisurely walk. I think the strenuous part was getting in and out of the boats and walking (at a leisurely pace) up steps to the top of Fort Angelo, a substitute destination for the planned Inquisitor’s Palace, which was closed today.

Malta is steeped in more history than I can recount, dating back to the Mesolithic period (6500 BC). Given its strategic position in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, it’s been ruled through the centuries by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights Hospitaller (a.k.a. Knights of St. John), French and British.

From our perch atop Fort Angelo, we could see some of the hospital buildings that accommodated wounded soldiers from World War I, leading the island to become known as the Nurse of the Mediterranean. Malta was heavily bombed during World War II. Since gaining its independence from Britain, it has joined the European Union and the Eurozone.

Once the dghajsas returned us to Valletta, I took the elevator up to wander the main city streets. They are full of high-end stores and outdoor cafes spilling into large squares. I love the Maltese stone buildings with their colorful enclosed wooden balconies, called Gallarija Maltija. I took lots of photos with intentions to sketch and paint them back on board – and realized I did the same thing when here in April. I can’t resist.

Malta is on our itinerary twice more this fall, and in early October I am spending the night in Marsaxlokk, a picturesque fishing village. You can bet that I will pack my watercolors.