Saturday, November 9, 2024
Keith took this on our way to breakfast. We have a great location on deck 6, aft. When we come out of our hall there is a bank of elevators that no one uses, because there are about 14 rooms in this area. We can pop right up to deck 14 to do a pretty private walk to the buffet. It is very nice.
We were up early to get on our excursion to Corfu. Unfortunately, the buses didn’t arrive in a timely manner, and we waited for almost an hour. Oh well. There were a lot of irritated people, but I couldn’t see the point of that. We were sitting in the theater, so we were not exactly suffering. We chatted up the people around us and had a fine time.
Keith was looking at excursions a while back while I was reading a book. He read something aloud of a cave and then asked it that sounded good. I said yes. I had not heard him at all. He said he signed us up and he was excited about it. Sounded good to me. We were signed up to go on small boats into caves on the west side of the island of Corfu. Neither of us knew what would be interesting about these caves. Turns out it wasn’t the caves; it was the water in the caves that was interesting. I don’t know why, but the water was a wonderful blue color all around the bay, but really blue and sometimes a bit pink(!) in the small caves. The caves were maybe 30 feet deep at most into the side of the big rocks. There were bright blue fish in one – but we were assured they were really just grey. Another had a big blue spot – regular water color, then BAM – BLUE! The water was so clear that we could see the bottom 60 feet down. It was 48 degrees when we got up and I took my coat with me, thinking it would be cool in an open boat in a cave. It was a glorious, sunny 70 degrees by 10:00, so we were fine with T shirts. It was just stunning, riding around the bay, going from cave to cave. The pictures will not in any way show what it was like, because it was just too good to get without being there. Lucky we were there.
Our bus snuck up the hills to Bella Vista, the spot to look down on the bay. Buses can only go one direction through the village because there is nowhere for them to get out of the way if one came from the other direction. We crept through the town with the side mirrors tucked in and inches of clearance on either side. We stopped at the Golden Fox restaurant to take pictures of the bay and the surrounding area. They said we had 20 minutes to take pictures, use the restroom, and get a snack or drink. We used the bathroom (because never turn down a chance to use a bathroom) and took pictures. We came into the restaurant and every single other person from our bus was eating. We had been off the boat an hour – and waiting an hour before that – but seriously, didn’t you all just eat breakfast? Someone said they could eat, so they were eating. I thought it was very comical.
We visited a small monastery that has three nuns in residence. Corfu has been fought over so many times throughout history that their churches are meant to be plain and simple and to blend in with the other buildings of a village – so hopefully they would be left alone by raiders. The insides are more ornate, depending on the wealth of the village.
I can only see cubes, except for the sunny spot – then I set diamonds. Funny.
We shopped our way through the old town while walking to see the old fort. We bought several things, including gelato (pistachio and banoffee). It was just perfect – cool sunny weather, interesting shops, very few people. The “season” was officially over several weeks ago and many shops were closed until March. We are the last boat of the year. They host 550 ships between March and October each year and over 1,000,000 guests. The rest of Greece is pretty arid and desert-y and full of ruins (kindly called “a box of rocks” at our house). Corfu is lush and verdant and so much nicer than any other Greek place we have visited. Win. (They still have a lot of olive trees)
The mountains are Albania. There is a thin slice of Greece that goes along the shore. Corfu is almost the more north western bit of Greece – one more small island farther up the water a little way.
On the shuttle back to the ship, we were talking to some nice ladies who live by Great America. When we identified as Minnesotans, the jerk sitting across from us had to mention we must be sad to get Governor Walz back because he is a liar – he said Tim lied about his service in the National Guard and left so he wouldn’t get deployed (both debunked by the National Guard immediately after the Republicans made it up) and because he is an idiot for having tampons put in boys locker rooms. Keith said maybe they should research facts before saying things about other people and they said we should just be glad that America is going to be great again and we are lucky they will let us take part in it.
Heaviest sigh, again.
We did trivia with Keith and Simon (Simon was on the shuttle with us and said we did a good job of running away asap) and again lost by one point. I am naming our team the 16s tomorrow, because that is what we have scored 3 times in a row.
We went to the dining room right when it opened at 4:45 and tried for a table and got one! We hadn’t eaten since breakfast (not even a treat at the Golden Fox) and that made everything very tasty. We both had grilled pineapple to start, soup, then Keith had chili rellenos and I had English beef roast.
We went up to watch Jurassic Park Dominion or whatever the one with grasshoppers is called on the deck. It was shivery with lots of wind, but we got two blankets and got cuddly. Fifty minutes into the movie, we left to play Top Five Trivia. They gave us a top 5 list – produces the most beer, for example – and blanked out one of the top 5. So we knew the other 4 and had to guess the 5th. Sometimes it was #1, sometimes a different # on the list. We got 17. It was pretty easy, until it wasn’t, but it was still fun.
Then we watched a comedian, who was pretty funny. He was talking about how women are in charge and some was pretty trite, but he had a few really funny bits. We zoomed up to see the theater show after that – Same, Same, but Different. It was twins from Argentina who juggled. They did some club passing and some synchronized juggling. They did a good hat routine, and a well done ball spinning routine with an audience member. They made us clap a lot – as in “we have to start this again because you didn’t clap enough” regardless of how we clapped. It got old. Benjamin was a better juggler when he was 9, but it wasn’t about the juggling, it was about the show.
We raced out after it was done – literally scurrying up the aisle as the cruise director was talking about tomorrow because we were down front and would have been stuck getting out – and back up to the deck – coat and sweatshirt in hand. The first showing of the Dinosaur Movie had long finished, but we got there for the second half (missed 5-7 minutes that couldn’t be helped, but we have seen it before) of the second showing. We were very comfy with our cold weather gear and a blanket. The second half of that movie is pretty dumb, but we are loving sitting out under the stars watching movies. It got done about 11:45, and then we remembered we turn our clocks back an hour tonight. THE BEST DAY is happening again! An extra hour! YAY.
The view from our window when I got up this morning; Greece in front, Albania in the back. (Albania!!)
