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The day the rains came in Dubrovnik – 15 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

… and forgot to stop!

Things we’ll remember:

  • Waking to rain on the balcony.
  • Heavy rain, light rain, but constant rain.
  • Breakfast in “Smash ’n’ Grab”.
  • Constant messages from the Cruise Director.
  • Warnings to those going home to stay in your cabins until called.
  • Went for a walk in the afternoon.
  • Almost cut my hair – or got it cut.
  • Saw the ‘battleship’ and the armoured car.
  • No cats in the armoured car.
  • Watched the rain forming rivers on the windows of “Indigo”.
  • Tapas for dinner – excellent.
  • Show was “Movies”
  • Aka the professional male dancer’s flies burst open during his routine!
  • Nearly dropped his partner when the ship moved for him!
  • Brambles for two – very nice!

 

Bar – 14 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A small town that is a bit down at heel, but trying hard to make something of itself.

Things we’ll remember:

  • Beautiful sunrise and sail in.
  • Two Tui ships in port at the same time.
  • Free bus into town.
  • Decorated utility boxes (substations and the like) in town
  • Temple of St Jovan Vladimira. Frescos on every wall inside.
  • Wild flowers everywhere.
  • Chinese shop with everything, everywhere.
  • Vista restaurant for dinner – pretend posh Italian.
  • Vista didn’t cut the mustard.
  • Thunderstorm at night.

Corfu – 13 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A bit run down now and a long walk from the port to the old town. Bit the bullet and got the bus back.

Things to remember:

  • That long walk in the hot sun.
  • Been there before, but couldn’t remember any of it.
  • New building built onto ancient ruins.
  • Camera bag for €40 after a bit of haggling, but no sale.
  • €44 tee shirt. Nice shirt but 40 quid(??), no thanks.
  • Narrow streets.
  • Congested.
  • It rained!
  • Beer next to a naval base.
  • German Torpedos on display at naval base.
  • The Holocaust statue.

Katakolon or Katakolo – 12 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A small town in Greece.

Just really a main street with lots of touristy shops. Like so many of the ports on this cruise, it was only a berth to allow folk to be bussed to more interesting places. Today’s buses were going to Olympia. We weren’t on those buses, we made the mistake of going on a wee train. Forty five minutes waiting for the driver to drum up enough custom to make it worth his while driving us round a few miles up hill and back down again. If you ever get the chance to pre-book a ticket on one of these tours, walk away. All the folk on our train wished they had. But there were highlights in Katakolo too and here are some of them.

Things we’ll remember:

  • That wee train and the 45min wait.
  • The red parasols of crew from the posh Viking ship next door.
  • Greek salad for lunch in a quayside cafe.
  • Gyros.
  • Lines of olive trees.
  • Just how dry the landscape was.
  • View looking out from the harbour.

Water Leak – 11 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Today was Sunday in Piraeus and it was hot, but cloudy with the threat of rain and thunder storms.

We had a warning last night in our cabin that over 900 passengers would be leaving the ship at intervals in the morning to go on excursions, so probably best leave breakfast until a little later. This morning we had another warning, not the one you want to hear when you’re on a ship. There was a water leak and we were given an hour’s warning that the entire water system of the ship was being turned off.

After our late breakfast we made sure to use our time wisely and evacuated whatever needed evacuating, then left the plumbers or engineers to do their work. We walked off the ship and on into the town which seemed closed. Well, it was Sunday after all and we were in quite a small town.

I was searching for two things. The first was the fish market, which I didn’t find, presumably because it was Sunday and it would have been closed anyway. The second was the place where motorbikes go to die. It’s a bike shop on a street corner with some lovely machines inside. Outside is where the scrap bikes are left to be cannibalised for spare parts. I found it, up a steep hill with a children’s playground and dog walking area across the road. Got a photo of a Kawasaki chopper that might make PoD.

Things we’ll remember:

  • Late breakfast.
  • Water leak.
  • Looong walk into town.
  • Shops shut on Sundays.
  • Today was Sunday.
  • Angry dog.
  • Where motorbikes go to die.
  • Sunset over the mountains.

 

Souda for Chania – 10 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

The first Greek town this year, although Scamp does remind me that it’s Crete, not Greece!

We had breakfast in the posh restaurant we ate in last night. Sensible plates of food for once. Then we watched the sail in on a beautiful morning.

With no tours booked, we just watched until the queue for the bus calmed down then walked out and caught the €1.50 bus from Souda, where we were docked, into Chania town. We had to stand for the 15min journey which was a pain in the legs.

It was a bit busy in the town, In fact it was very busy, but it was Saturday and you have to remember that. My watch wasn’t syncing yet with my phone, so I also had to remember to add on an extra two hours to the time.

We walked through the shops, all of which seemed to sell leather goods, but didn’t buy anything. We did go for coffee in a wee cafe in a town square. We walked as far as the harbour and watched the horse drawn carriages going past. We both felt sorry for the horses.

At night we had another posh dinner sat next to a crazy man and his wife. He was telling the steward how he had a machine gun fitted to the front of his mini. He said it kept everyone out of his way. Scamp tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped as if he’d been slapped and shouted “Don’t touch me!” If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was Ray Furminger’s brother. That same kind of sarcastic humour. Great fun was had by all apart from his wife who smiled and shook her head at everything he said.

Dancing at night to music by a girl from the entertainment team. Sitting with two women who were dancers, certainly better than me, but they had the advantage of being sober.

Tomorrow it’s Piraeus

Things we’ll remember:

  • The sail in.
  • The man with the Barrel Organ.
  • Horses pulling two seater gigs in Chania.
  • Old church or cathedral. Beautiful, but dark inside.
  • Two weans chasing pigeons across the church square.
  • Watching the wee fish swimming in the harbour.
  • Overcrowded buses, going in to town and returning to Souda.
  • Mad Saturday traffic.
  • Being served ‘sit down’ breakfast in the posh restaurant.

All at Sea – 9 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Things we’ll remember:

  • Dance Class in the morning with the “professionals”, Aka & Gvantsa.
  • Very impressive dancers, although their idea of “English waltz” was – nothing like ours.
  • As teachers they have a lot to learn.
  • Weather hot!
  • Found sun beds quite easily.
  • Dinner in the posh restaurant again.
  • Enjoyed a show in the theatre
  • Danced at night in the atrium with a reprise of this morning’s lesson.
  • Dancing was difficult without dance shoes and on marble floor.
  • Watched the sunset.
  • First of the towel animals appeared in the room!

PoD is a view from the balcony, the menu for today and the first of the towel animals.

Tomorrow we will arrive at Chania in Crete.

An early rise … – 8 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

… then off to the sun!

Writing a blog takes a lot of time and effort, but I like reading the blogs from past years and little things that caught my eye or imagination. With that in mind, these two weeks of blogs will be in a different format, but hopefully they will just as interesting.

  • Flew to Dubrovnik then got a coach to the ship
  • Had to have our passports stamped more times than was realistically necessary.
  • After that we were on the ship and could have that all important first Holiday Beer.
  • Most folk were away to Dubrovnik old town, so we had the salt water pool, the unheated salt water pool(!) all to ourselves.
  • Dressed for dinner later, as was expected.
  • Even so, much more relaxed than P&O
  • Finished the day at a party on the pool deck.
  • Scamp had a Pina Colada! I had a G&T.

PoD is a collage of views of Dubrovnik from our wander round the decks of Marella Explorer 2.

A day at sea tomorrow.

Almost there – 7 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A day for doing as little as possible and not thinking too much about tomorrow.

As usual, I was just a little bit stressed, but Scamp suggested lunch at Broadwood, partly to reduce the stress and also so we had less work preparing dinner. It was the usual fare. Scamp had fish ’n’ chips and I had a couple of slices of roast ham and roast turkey with all the trimmings and a pint of murky Belhaven Best. Only drank half of it, just in case it affected my sometimes dodgy stomach.

Later I went over to St Mo’s and found a PoD which was a baby’s sunhat sitting on a tree stump. That might be a strange subject for today’s photo, but there is a Flickr group called TLOP (Things Left On Posts) and this would fit perfectly. There wasn’t much else to photograph. The dragonflies were still buzzing round the ponds and seemed to have no need of a rest, so TLOP it was.

Later we watched a Sewing Bee from our catalog of programs downloaded, but not yet watched. They seem to be making the tasks harder and harder this year.

After that it was time to set the alarm for 2.45am (!) and go to bed for a very short sleep.

Money makes the world go around – 6 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

The money in question was foreign and old.

The money was Kuna abbreviated to kn, and the part of the world was Croatia. When we were last in that neck of the woods, last summer, we hadn’t spent as much kn as we’d intended to, and when we came home it was squirrelled away for use when the time came to travel to that far land again. Unfortunately we hadn’t noticed that on the 1st of January 2023 the kn was replaced by the Euro. Scamp had noticed this earlier in the week and after a bit of calculation we discovered that our 1500kn was worth about £150 if we could get somewhere to buy it.

We were going in to Glasgow today anyway to swap out a shirt I’d bought, not noticing it was a ‘Tailored Fit’ that wouldn’t fit my not quite svelte body. We’d drop in to JL first to see what they’d offer for our kuna. The answer was that JL didn’t buy kuna because there is no demand for it now, I suppose. However the cashier said she thought Euroexchange at the opposite end of Buchanan Galleries were still buying Kuna. We trotted along and after a couple of phone calls we were told that they would buy back most of the notes. Some of our smaller denomination notes were too old and virtually worthless, but we did get a fairly decent exchange rate for our out of date Croatian money. Quite delighted we walked on to Slaters where the shirt was exchanged for a ‘normal fit’.

On the way back I could feel that the unexpected money was burning a hole in Scamp’s pocket. But she is much more cautious than me and would only part with the ‘lump sum’ if she thought she was getting a bargain, and it appears that nothing she saw fitted that bill. Lunch was in Paesano and it was just as delicious as usual, sorry Alex! Coffee in Nero was the last stop before we drove home, but on the way there I took a few photos of the Donald Dewar outside Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. Donald Dewer, in case you don’t know, was the inaugural First Minister of the Scottish Government. That became PoD.

Sun took a bit longer to come out today. Maybe it wasn’t quite sure if those clouds were going to break enough to make it worth its while and it was late into the afternoon before it finally made up its mind to shine. Even the, there was a cool breeze. Maybe this is the end of summer, when it’s only just begun.

Tomorrow Scamp is getting her nails ‘done’. A birthday present voucher from her big sister that she’s finally used. Hope they aren’t those ‘Tiger Claws’ I see some women with!