Off to the boat today and on the way bought some great chocolate to take home and arrived at the cruise terminal about 1.00pm and finally boarded around 2.30pm. So we chucked the bags in the room and went exploring, it’s a really big boat, bigger than a big thing. We found the food places, the pools, the bars, there are dozens of those and generally got a feel for how to get around. It is off to Bari tomorrow and we are due to arrive there around noon. Went to dinner at the 9.00pm sitting and met our future dinner partners who we Pedro from Miami, Bruno from Portugal originally currently in the USA and Chris and Heather from Delaware in USA. All in all a great bunch and we all got on well.... read more

Very early start today as plane leaves Athens for Rome and then Venice today at 06.30am. We were up at 03.00am waiting for the shuttle. It’s a good thing we were early as it took ages to get through customs at Athens. Not much to say except and uneventful trip to Rome and then on to Venice where we caught the water bus to Rialto and walked to our hotel from there. We were harassed by a guy who wanted to carry our luggage for 20e but we said no as we knew where to go and it is not too far, he kept following us and dropping his price, in the end Pam got really annoyed and told him so. The Palazzo Vitturi is as we remembered. It a beautiful old Venetian Palazzo in the ... read more

Today Pam decided to get her nails done so off she went to a place just down from the hotel and I trudged off to the old Roman Agora the ancient centre of Athens only a 10 min walk from the hotel. The main centrepiece is the old temple built circa 500ad and still standing virtually complete today, it is the best preserved ancient temple in Greece and likely the world. The balance of the agora is only ruins now after the Heruli (germans) invaded and destroyed it circa 267ad.We then met up again and headed off to find the “teleferic” or cable car to take us to the top of the Lycabettus Hill, the one the Venetians lobbed the cannon ball from to destroy the Parthenon. It was a tough climb half way up the ... read more

The 8.55am flight from Mykonos is scheduled for a 1 hour flight and after 30 mins we had landed at Athens so we are in Athens and off the plane with bags at 10.00 looking for the metro station, finding this was a piece of cake and then it went downhill after that. Went to the counter and asked for 2 tickets to the central station and I was told 14e from the first surly, pooh faced Greek woman I have met yet, typical government worker piss poor attitude, it made matters worse when I complained at the cost and then she handed me one ticket only and I reminded her I wanted two, rudely she snapped it is for two expecting me to be able to read Greek. Now by and large I am polite ... read more

Dead calm this morning not a breath of wind, today we hired a quad bike to cruise the island and headed off to a place called wild beach. The little quad is just great for getting around fine for two people and small enough to park most places, is great fun, no helmets just cruising. Getting somewhat lost on the way seems to be part of the fun and the street names in Greek are hard work and they are tiny on the island, many only wide enough for one vehicle but you do manage. So we first came to the only “village” on the island which has this great monastery dating back to the 1600 and in great condition, very different to a church and we spent some time there. The island in general is ... read more