The Beautiful Island of Corfu

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We got up bright and early this morning at 6:45 am as we wanted to have a proper breakfast in the dining room. Up until today, we have eaten our breakfast in the Garden Café, which is the self-service buffet. They do offer some very nice selections of food and plenty of it, but it is incredibly noisy. The noise level can really be distracting from enjoying your food. We chose to eat in the Tsar’s Palace dining room and enjoyed a lovely breakfast of grapefruit juice, smoked salmon eggs benedict, along with some fresh tropical fruit and some hash browns, topped off with a cappucino. Yummy! The day was absolutely astoundingly beautiful. The temperature was listed as 64 degrees F, but in actuality it was more like 84. Perhaps their thermometer was off. We were 5 minutes late arriving to the meeting point for our tour and almost missed out bus! They do these tours rather quickly. We got on the bus, which seemed rather muggy, but it eventually aired out a bit. We were on the “Scenic Islands and Flavours” tour, which takes us on a bus tour up the island. Our first stop was the Monestary of the Virgin Mary, situated at 1000 ft above sea level and absolutely staggering views. Originally this monestary had many monks, but now there were only 3. The church itself was surrounded by a many beautiful plants, including a candy-apple red draping bougainvilla. You could certainly tell is was spring as before we entered the monestary, while taking photos of the incredible view, our attention was diverted onto this poor female cat who was being shared by 2 males. They attracted a considerable amount of attention as the crowd was quite amused.

One of the wildest things about Greece is its narrow roads. I guess the roads are narrow in many places in Europe, but I can’t help but find it funny at times. No word of lie, sometimes the bus is so close to hitting something on either side, you cannot believe that they allow such vehicles on the road. I am certain that it would not be allowed in Calgary if we had roads that narrow. The bus driver was applauded at our stopping point which was a very quaint little spot called the “Golden Fox” We enjoyed some ouzo (served in the traditional way… with water) and mezza (a selection of appetizers including dolmathes, olives, tzadziki and some sliced meats). This was a very light meal. I was a still a little hungry and saw someone else’s dish of baklava and decided to try it. This version is very different from the kind I eat at home. It is much more nut-based rather than phyllo-based. Lots of casbews in a very rich honeyed sauce. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn’t be something that I eat all the time.

The road back was just as beautiful as the ride up and we stopped in Corfu Town at the end for 20 minutes. Yes, only 20 minutes. Even though the ship was not going to be sailing away for another 3 hours (4:30), the tours ended at 1:30. I felt a little ripped off there as 20 minutes is not enough to see much of anything. However, overall it was still a very nice day and we were also very lucky to sit nearby 2 very nice couples, a couple from San Diego and another couple from Sidney, Australia. We had lots of good laughs on the bus together.

Before we got on ship, we bought some wine in the duty free store so that we could bring it back to our room for afternoon cocktails. $4.00 - $6.00 Euro is better than $30 US a bottle, which is what we paid the night before for wine. We are however, savoring that particular wine by only drinking one glass of it a night with our dinner. As long as you order your wine onboard, you can have it delivered to any dining room on ship and enjoy it with your dinner.

Once we got back, we relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful sunset with our cheap wine, had some snacks and then headed back to our room to rest. Mom has been having an awful time with her feet. They have just been swollen the entire time. I believe that heat is the culprit. Even my feet have suffered a bit of swelling due to heat, although not as bad as mom’s.

We had booked our dining room experience the day before as we wanted to try one of the “alternate dining” specialty restaurants for which there is an extra fee. But being the thrifty shoppers that we are, we got the early bird special which gave us the price of 2 for 1. We chose “Cagney’s Steakhouse”. Mom and I enjoyed fabulous meals there. She had a jumbo shrimp cocktail, lobster bisque, 8 oz filet mignon with béarnaise sauce and asparagus and topped it all off with a killer coffee crème brulee with a nice dollop of whipped cream I enjoyed crab cakes, Caesar salad, ahi tuna with a crab leg and creamed spinach, and ed enjoyed bananas foster for dessert. We also had a few side dishes including truffle oil French fries which were also really yummy. We stuffed ourselves silly.

After that beautiful dinner, we headed off to the Stardust theatre and watched a famous BBC actor (Benny Hill) do a stand-up show. It was a great laugh and a fun way to end the evening.

BTW, I forgot to mention that mom got into the Bon Voyage cake today. I guess she needed something sweet. She told me to dig in, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. We’ll ask the room stewart to finally take it away. (Bon Voyage to the cake… LOL)

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Comments

[Alex Cao]

Hi
I think that it is awesome that you went to Corfu! I hope you had fun. How was the weather?