Katakolon/Olympia - Greece

Another lie-in this morning, and then breakfast in the main dining room. Then off the ship around 9.30 am to have a look around this quaint port. We are not doing any tours, even though Olympia (the site of the original Olympic Games from thousands of years ago) is half an hour away by road. This port is more beautiful than we expected, and although there are four big ships in port, we're finding it nice. Having said that, we've just wandered up and down the main street (approximately 250 metres long), and David has suffered through the heat, the crowds (everyone has got off their ships at once), and then shopping amongst it all (not his idea of fun). Nevertheless, we managed a brief Skype talk with Michelle (bad connection though) and a brief chat with Wendy and Taylor from school, and I had another attempt to talk to Andrew later (again, a poor link). So, now, David is back on the ship relaxing, and I'm catching up on the blog and uploading photos.

Before he headed back to the ship, we sat on the waterfront and he had a Mythos beer (quite bitter, he says, but he likes it) and I had an iced coffee with ice cream :-). In spite of all the eating we're doing, I wouldn't be surprise if I'd lost weight - I'm sure my trousers were less tight last evening and this morning, from all the walking in Athens.

David thinks he might try the slot machines in the ship's Casino later today, and try to win a Mercedes car whilst there. It is another Formal night tonight, so we all have to get dressed up. One of the couples at our table didn't join us for dinner last night - he is German, and they'd seen that there was a Bavarian Buffet in one of the other restaurants, so they went there. We'll hear about their day in Athens tonight.

Is anyone looking at the Crown Princess Bridge Cam? You'll see what the weather is like here. Also, is anyone following the progress of the ship by Satellite (see link at the side).

Corfu tomorrow, then a day at sea.

Addendum - We didn't end up going to the casino because it was closed, but had a wonderful soak in the Terrace Pool at the back of the ship for an hour, and chatted to some other kiwis there. They had some stories of people being pickpocketed in Athens, too.

Then we went to the trivia quiz - we joined another lady, the other groups were quite big, and we only got 8 questions out of the 20 correct.

After that we entered the Nintendo Wii activity - down hill slalom (skiing between the flags) - only about 6 people doing this activity - we had a couple of turns each and didn't do that well but didn't disgrace ourselves either.

Then we got ready for dinner (another formal night) and I convinced David to go to the Art Auction - at least we'd get free champagne while we were there (we had 3 small glasses each!). It turned out to be very interesting, but I was very disappointed when my favourite painting came up for auction and the starting price was around US$30,000!! Oh well! Some people did pay $20,000 for another painting.....

On our way to dinner I dragged David over to the photographer and we had some formal photos taken - no sitting fee, but they'll make a mint if we buy the photos! I'm waiting till the last day of the cruise as I've heard on Cruise Critic that sometimes they do deals then - we'll see.

We had another wonderful dinner, and tonight was the night I'd booked for my birthday celebration (you can book a special event within 18 days of the original date). They brought in a huge and beautifully decorated gluten free cake and the waiters sang happy birthday to me! Unfortunately, they'd already all paraded in with flaming baked alaskas for everyone in the restaurant, so no one was able to eat a slice of my cake. I had a piece, and Michelle, it was lovely - a sponge with some sort of liquor in it, plus a layer with pears and chocolate, all covered in a thick layer of whipped cream. I asked them to send a slice to another lady who I knew is also gluten free. We'll have some more tomorrow night (Corfu).

After the dinner, David headed to bed and I went with another couple from our table to see the show, which was absolutely fabulous - a scottish woman (Seonaid - pronounced 'Shona' - Aitken) who was a multi-talented musician - she could really make her violin sing, but she also played the piano and sang beautifully too. She got a standing ovation, and if I can find a CD of hers, I'll buy it. She was amazing!