Katakolon & Corfu Greece

Katakolon Greece

Today we woke up to another little village and port called Katakolon.  Its on the same island as Navplion (opposite side and end) and it’s the port for Olympia.

Olympia is the birthplace of the Olympics.  It was not a village but a holy place where only priests were allowed to live.  Interestingly only virgin women were allowed to compete in the games and if married women watched the games and were caught they were executed.  That’s the history lesson for today…

We wandered up and down the 2 streets of Katakolon and checked out every tourist shop and jeweler but none of them tempted me to open my purse.  We then wandered down the waterfront and stopped in another very comfy café where Alan had a beer.

Wandered the 10 metres back to the ship and spent a lazy afternoon reading – well I did, Alan went to the gym etc but I couldn’t get enthused!

Corfu

Today we woke up in Corfu which is an island on the north west coast of Greece.  We left the ship just after 8 and caught the shuttle bus to the terminal – it was a whole 100metres!!! then got a taxi into town. 

First stop was the Byzantine built Old Fortress which was the original settlement and only accessible across Contafossa moat via a moveable wooden bridge.  Alan climbed to the very top of the mountain, I stopped ¾ of the way up and admired the view of very expensive yachts in the harbour below.  There were a couple of not so expensive yachts whose inhabitants were doing their daily bath on the back ladder – stark naked!   Anyway once again the fort is in desperate need of maintenance and restoration but at least this one we could walk thru including the old prison which would have been a pretty horrific place to be incarcerated.

From the fort we walked thru a part to the Palace of St Michael & St George which is now an art gallery.  From here we wandered down the Platia Spianada and then up and down the narrow alleys paved with blocks of stately kantounia stone where tourist shops abounded and mixed in between these were handbag shops galore (could have been a handbag slut again but Alan had the money so was just allowed to look) and some fabulous little boutiques and restaurants.  Wandered up and down and all around for about 3 hours and stopped in another café for an iced coffee (which turned out to be black coffee with a scoop of icecream in it) and a tasty little bit of pastry.

Once revived we decided we would walk the 2.5kms back to the ship along the waterfront rather than pay the $15 taxi fare again.  It was a very pleasant stroll but a bit weary after all the walking already done.   Back on boat and Alan has discovered the AFL is on the TV, so that’s him done for for the next couple of hours.

Decided I really like the cruise format as its great to wake up each morning in a different town, city or country without having to pack and unpack bags. The most difficult decision on board is what restaurant you want to go to for dinner. Also you can choose how much or little you want to do in each port.  After 5 hours of walking today we were both more than happy to come back to the ship and just veg for the arvo.

Some bits of trivia about the cruise:

• It is 300 steps and 4 floors from our cabin to the coffee
• There are 2000 passengers on board and 850 of them are Australian
• There are 170 South Australians on a tour being led by Malcolm Blight, who I’m told is an ex North Melbourne AFL player and coach – thrilling huh?
• The food is exceptionally good, we prefer the dining room as the portion control is good and the buffet always tempts you to go back for more bad food.
• Every port we have visited has a number of very black Africans wandering around selling knock off watches.  They seem to be very well organized, they all carry the same type of suitcase that opens to display the watches.  Don’t know how they make a living as we haven’t seen anyone buying anything.