Friday 1 June 2012 Katakolon

Katakolon (Ka TA koe lon) is the jumping off point for Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games.

When we were booking our excursions online from home a couple of months ago, it did not sound too interesting, so we did not book anything. Now that we are on board and they are talking it up, it sounds kind of attractive. However, since we thought we had the day off, we booked lunch in the hard-to-get-into Asian restaurant at noon which doesn’t really allow time for an excursion before or after. The Dim Sum was scrumptious.

We left the ship about 9 or 9:30 and wandered the town. Celeste has been looking for baklava and we found some at this café before continuing our stroll. Mmmm delicious!

We went back to the ship for lunch, and then returned to the village.

We took in a very interesting little museum. The owner had studied ancient Greek inventions and built working models of them. I noted three things in particular: they were very ingenious with levers and pulleys; they were very clever at communicating over great distances; and they were very good at using water and air pressure to power various machines, some for work and others for entertainment.

After the museum we went down to the local beach where I waded into the Ionian Sea.

We returned to the ship in time take in the 4 PM movie. Today it was Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. It started out a little slow, but it eventually drew you into the mystery and the characters. It is evident why it won several Academy Award nominations, although the kid could be quite annoying. From the movie we went to the Greek buffet and barbecue on the rear pool deck. We were so stuffed from our morning and lunch that I didn’t think we would be able to eat supper, but we managed to sample almost everything. The moussaka was especially wonderful.

I have been having trouble uploading to the internet the last few days, but it is going fairly smoothly tonight, so I might be able to catch up. Half the people in the village cafes were using laptops or tablets on the free Wi-Fi. I guess they aren't happy with the satellite internet either.

Weather: sunny, temperature 77F/25C, light wind.