European On Me!: Day Nine: Katakolon, Greece

Once again, we slept in late, this time until our breakfast was cold. Every morning, I ate two blueberry muffins and OJ, and Rob would get a ham and cheese omelet and some coffee. Sometimes we mixed it up and got a few other little things, but mostly that was it. So my muffins were okay, but his eggs were nasty. We finally got up when Aden, the cabin steward, was banging on our door to find out if the pillows were better.

I kept saying we shouldn't sleep our trip away, but Rob's point was that he should be able to sleep in and not rush around on his vacation if he wanted to. It's a good point; he does work so hard. While he lazed around some more, I checked email to see what was going on with the folks back home. I also received phone calls from both my dad and my sister, who thought we were back home already. They were both surprised when I said, "No, we're in Greece right now!" Kind of fun for them, I guess.

We'd also received some text messages from Steph in the middle of the night. Jack was sick and needed to go to the emergency room, because his temp was 105. Oh, no. We called back and forth, and we really worried about our son. But we decided to go out and make the most of it.

This was our first view off the ship. The big duty-free shop in Katakolon. No need for tender today; we were docked in the port.

At the end of the pier was the Greek Coast Guard station

The signs telling us where to go. I really wish we could have gone to the beach, but we had gotten up too early and it was another short day, like in Nàvplion.

What are these, impatiens? I don't know. They were bright fuschia, that's for darn sure!

After we walked around and did a little souvenir shopping, we came across three horse-and-buggies lined up for rides around the island. (I asked Rob to take a picture of the horse, and this is what I got! Der.) For five Euros each, we decided to take the ride.

Me, hot and sweaty and waiting for the ride to begin, obviously not bothering to hide my passport pouch anymore!

The island in front of us as we headed on out

Starting to enter the little village. It was tiny, and almost everything was a souvenir shop.

A playground among the houses

There's our pretty ship!

Three men walking down to the "marina,'" such as it was

This very Asian-looking house. Except for that, I was always interested on the tours when they pointed out architecture not necessarily from that country. Like, in Spain there was French and Italian and Greek stuff. In Italy, there was French and Spanish and Greek and other influences, etc. You get this perception that they are all discrete little packages, with their own little cultures, but they're not. There is a lot of intermingling. In Croatia, a lot of times I couldn't tell if they were speaking Croatian or Italian! There were a lot of similarities.

More of the beach and marina. Not a lot of swimmers that we could see. Almost back to the starting point. It was a very small, very disappointing port for us. We maybe should have taken the tour up to Mt. Olympus, because there really wasn't that much to see or do. We probably could have done without that one.

Husband parking! There was a nice bar - a real bar, not just a café although it was that, too - so we decided to go in and see what was what.

The bar was indoor-outdoor, but it was more open-air than other places. We sat in the shade, out of the heat.

Rob, sitting and waiting for our order

We ordered a small sampler platter, and this is what we received . Those are beans in the sauce, along with some olives, some fries, some yogurt dip, some pita, some gyro meat, some grape-leaf-covered somethings that I liked and Rob didn't...

The view of the bar from the front. When we went to pay, I was relieved to find we still had enough Euros in our pocket for it, and I said, "phew!" to Rob about the bill. The female shopkeep, who was from New Orleans but moved to Greece and runs this bar with her Greek husband, said, "What, what's wrong?" I told her I was worried we wouldn't have enough, and she said she didn't care whether we did or not, as long as we'd had enough to eat! Then she gave us some baklava to take back to the ship. Isn't that SO NICE?! I love these people!

It was damn good baklava, too.

We walked passed these ride-on toys on our way back to the ship. I had to take a picture, because I was thinking how much my little ones would love these colorful rides.

One last view of Katakolon, Greece, before we reboarded the ship. It was so hot; I couldn't wait to get my lemonade and cold washcloth!

Once aboard, we changed into our bathing suits and went swimming on the Lido Deck. It was barely cooler than the air, so it wasn't very refreshing, but it was better than nothing! Later, I took a nap while Rob went out drinking at one of the ship's bars with an older Dutch couple. He was there quite a long while, just chatting about stuff, and he came back a little sloshed but happy.

We tried to complete our art auction after that, for the Britto and the other thing, but we had the wrong appointment time. So we went down to dinner.

This time, we were seated with an American couple from Arizona, another from Texas, and their son Drew, who is in law school and very frat boyish. We later shared a taxi with him in Venice. They were all very nice, and we had lots of fun, lots of laughs, over our meal. Rob ate the salmon ceviche, cream of onion soup, white perch, and baba au rum for dessert. I had crab and spinach quiche, onion soup, white perch, and a phyllo dough with chocolate mousse for dessert. It was delicious! I usually love anything with phyllo dough, though.

Afterward we went to the show, which was "Moscow Magic." We had to stand in the way back, so we didn't have a very good view, but it was still a good show. There were some predictable tricks, but there were also some good and very surprising tricks. Somehow, the female kept changing outfits right in front of us, without doing anything. Her outfit would just change, over and over. I still can't wrap my mind around that one!

We went down to exchange more USD for Euros after that. We did that a lot. The Front Desk people began to know our names, between that and all the postcard stamps we bought!

We went back to the room to check on Jack, and to talk to Chloë and Stephanie. He was doing a little better by then, so we were relieved, but then the girls got sick. Poor Stim. They had plenty to deal with in our absence! And after that, we went to bed.

Tomorrow, stay tuned for Corfu, Greece!

Fin.