Blogs from Ionian Islands, Greece, Europe - page 2

Today we get to see Corfu Greece! It is HOT! The excursion today is a Food on foot tour. Mainly a fishing village but now its main industry is tourism. Most of these towns we visit have multiple cruise ships in port each day. Today there seems to be only 3 ships. We are guided to different shops to sample liqueurs and sweets that are local. Limoncello, candied almonds, kumquat liqueur and brittles. Streets are paved in marble and we are always warned about them being slick. Every corner is packed with gift shops, taverns or clothing stores. Lunch at a “taverna” and then back to the ship. Tomorrow Athens!... read more

Assos, Kefalonia, Greece Taking advantage of our Nectar points (Avios air miles) we flew to Kefalonia from Heathrow with British Airways using their ‘Club Europe’ option. For this, you get to use the dedicated lounge with its free food and drink. Sounds good, but you have to order these via an app and that was faulty. First world problems. Enough moaning. Thank God the Maitre’d on the flight drew the curtain to separate us from the oiks in steerage; there was an unpleasant smell coming from back there, below deck. Apparently, the proles refuse to use the toilets, preferring to urinate etc. where they sat on their upturned beer crates. I had shepherd’s pie for lunch washed down with few glasses of fizz to help me ignore the grunting plebs. Note to self; I don’t drink ... read more

After hoarding Avios points for years we finally cashed them in. The downside is that to get the best value the only airline you can use them on is British Airways and you have to fly from London. There are other ways to use them, but you don’t get as good a deal. Price wise perhaps this isn’t the route to a massive bargain, but it’s still free. For our outward flight we ‘paid’ extra and treated ourselves to the Thistle Hotel near Heathrow, drawn by the appeal of its restaurant overlooking the runway and a free driverless shuttle pod to the terminal; very sci-fi. Because of covid, the restaurant was closed and the shuttle pod wasn’t running. Ah well. We got to the terminal early the next day, as our Club Europe status gained us ... read more

The day Marv and I arrived in Athens, we did little more than cope with jet lag, mainly by making our way to the Wyndham Grand hotel by way of The Canadian Institute to pick up my museum pass. Getting to the hotel went seamlessly but once there we had a long wait for our room. I was so tired I could little more than vegetate in the hotel lobby, even though the weather outside was warm and brilliant shining. Marv was able to dredge up enough energy to go buy a bottle of water and reconnoiter the neighborhood. While waiting, a lady dressed in mismatched flowery dress and shirt stepped out of the elevator and headed directly for us. She plopped onto the hotel where I sat semi-conscious and proceeded to spend the next hour ... read more

As mentioned in the last blog entry we are now in Greece, but still have the goal of getting to our winter berthing place of Fethiye, Turkey. We have plenty of miles to go and it is now September 16th so we started our journey. We know that there are many wonderful places to explore in Greece, but this season we are “just passing through”. There were only a couple of places that we knew we had to make as intermediate goals on our way. With our having lived for 26 years near Ithaca, NY we decided that we needed to at least make a stop at the island of Itaka in Greece. Another goal would be the westernmost entrance to the Corinth Canal as there is a timing issue you ... read more