Updated: Oct 23, 2022
People everywhere
A sense of expectation hanging in the air.
We had a late start today as the ship wasn’t due to dock into Argostoli – Kefalonia until 10am and so we thought we would try the posher Dining Rooms for breakfast. We both ordered the Eggs Benedict and some fruit with yoghurt. It was all very civilised and quiet as it seems most people like us previously had opted for the served buffet option on the 9th floor.
It is strange that having now been on the ship for almost a week that you start to recognise some people as you move around and that you start to think that you know them from somewhere else. Certainly, when we are onshore and we see people from the ship everyone does seem to say Hello.
Claire the Cruise Director is now though starting to grate on Karen with her twice daily cheery announcements over the tannoy. I think that she is just doing her job but Karen has really taken against her, I just think its jealousy at her ‘glamourous lifestyle!
After praising yesterday, the disembarking process today was a lot busier we assumed because of the later docking time and that we needed to use a tender to get ashore. There was a short 10-minute wait before we boarded the tender for the 10-minute journey ashore.
The small town looked really good in the deep blue-sky sunshine with a temperature hitting 25c.
We walked along the bay to start with, admiring the large shoals of fish in the clear water. As we walked further, we came along a larger group of people who were all watching some very large turtles swimming very close to the harbour wall. We could not believe how large they were (the turtles not the people, although saying that…). They were magnificent and looked just like Crush – awesome dude! We were mesmerised by them. They were being monitored by some marine students who were also asking people not to feed them as it made the turtles lazy looking for more appropriate food. One of the students was English so we had a chat with her about them. Apparently, there are 50 – 60 of them here at the moment but they will soon leave for the warmer waters off Africa for the winter.
The turtles alone had made the stop here worthwhile all on their own.
We kept walking and went half way over the De Bosset bridge. We were very taken by the place and were very glad we had now finally visited some of the Greek Islands. They were a place that had never previously featured very high in our list of places we wanted to visit before. Although they evidently had some very lovely towns we still wondered if they were enough to keep us occupied as we are not at the stage where we just want to sit by a pool all day most days. Certainly, also the summer months would probably be too hot for us and perhaps the winters too cool. If we want some cheap sun in the winter then our current guilty secret is still Lanzarote where we are familiar with a number of decent walks during the day. However we can now certainly see and appreciate the attraction of these islands though.
Karen was by now thirsty and after getting me to check online if the town had a Starbucks we settled for a supermarket and bought a can of diet coke and a cold bottle of water for the princely total sum of 86p. Not sure of the local prices but that seemed a bargain to me.
Some of the restaurants had stretched onto the promenade. In the middle of one had been left a public bench with their table and chairs either side. We sat on the bench and drank our cheap drinks looking over the bay. It was lovely.
As we set off again, we came across a lovely looking local coffee shop and despite just downing a bottle of water Karen decided she needed a caffeine fix and so we went in. She deemed the coffee to be not bad at all as we sat in their cool air con for a while.
We walked back a couple of streets to the main shopping drag which again seemed a mixture of normal shops and tacky shops but a pleasant stroll nevertheless.
After this we decided we had ‘done’ the town and headed to get the tender back to the ship. There was no real wait and we were soon back on board having a very late lunch. We got some water to take back with us to the cabin. For a hour or so we finally sat for a while on the balcony but it was all too much in the sun and eventually we had to retreat inside where we both managed to fall asleep. Now that is very unlike me but was much needed as we seemed to have been on the go non-stop for a week. I think we have been too much like kids in a sweet shop. As the drinks have been ‘free’ we have been having them, as the entertainment has been provided, we have been experiencing it all to ensure we are were getting best value from the cruise. Now we just need some down time. In fact, Karen said she was glad that tomorrow we would be at sea all day for that very reason. So, we thought we would take it easier this evening.
Around 7pm we went out for dinner and as ever it was top notch in particular the non-sugar Chocolate tart which was still very rich. We just had some wine with our meal and a Bellini afterwards. We then headed to the Main Stage Theatre to watch a specially commissioned showing of the BBC Earth Seven Continents One Planet wildlife programme accompanied by a soundtrack composed by Hans Zimmerman played by live musicians. It was really good, so much so that you kind of forgot at times that the music was being played live on the stage as an accompaniment rather than as part of the programme..
We were back in the cabin at 10pm in time with the time difference for the Norwich match playing away at Reading. Now as it was being shown on Sky Go, I was convinced I would have no trouble watching it. Wrong I frustrated at every attempt. Mainly it was down to the ships servers that would not let me watch TV live or any other streaming service.
Eventually I gave up at half time. I may have moaned once or twice about what a frigging stupid ship we were on with its frigging stupid internet service. Karen was by now sound asleep so I too retired dreaming of a Norwich victory in the second half.
Cruising we can definitely see the attraction and it is much better than we thought but is it us? We may need a holiday to get over it.
