Saturday 2 June 2012 Kerkira (Corfu)

This morning’s tour first took us to the Achillion Palace, built by Empress Elizabeth of Austria as a summer home and later owned by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. It was an interesting place with an interesting story. At the gift shop we bought a 1.5 ounce bottle of the local kumquat liqueur that we drank on the bus because we did not want to bother with transporting it home. It was pretty good – sort of like Hungarian pear liqueur except orangy flavoured.

Next stop was a photo op for some scenic shots, including a view of the airport runway. The stop was on a hairpin turn of a narrow road. There were buses parked everywhere with cars, buses and pedestrians all jostling for position on the road.

We then went to the old town for a short tour before being turned loose on our own. We wandered around for a while looking for souvenirs and absorbing the ambiance. We stopped for some kumquat ice cream and a delicious baklava dripping with honey. The ice cream itself had some kumquat flavour, plus there were pieces of dried kumquat blended in along with tiny chocolate chunks and bits of almond. It was so good!! Would have liked to go back for another sample, but it did not work out. We walked back to the ship, about half an hour, and were back in our cabin by about 2:30.

We went for afternoon tea in the dining room at 3 and I went to a Microsoft class at 3:30. We took in the movie at 4, but it wasn’t really grabbing us and we were pretty hungry, so we left and went up to the sail-away party around the pool where they were serving Greek treats, including baklava and other sweet and buttery morsels. We watched the departure manoeuvres from the railing on the deck above the pool.

We then changed and went for dinner about 6 with two American couples. We took in the 8 PM show in the Showroom. Tonight they had an American gymnast who had won some Olympic gold medals and world championships. One day he woke up and realized that all he knew how to do was gymnastics, so he had to figure out how to make a career of it. He worked up a Cirque de Soleil type routine using long strips of cloth hanging from the ceiling. He throws jokes in throughout and adds juggling and a couple of numbers at the piano. Overall, very different, but pretty entertaining.

We went back to our room for a while where I wrote the blog and managed the pictures while Celeste had a little snooze. We went to the Dessert Extravaganza at 10:30, just to have a look. And we succeeded! Just took some pictures and went to bed. Here is only a very a small sample.

Time change tonight. We gain an hour. Lost one between Italy and Greece if I did not mention it previously.

Weather: sunny, temperature 77F/24C, light wind.