Just a leisurely 2km Kotor walk

Today we landed in Kotor, Montenegro. At the Captain’s advice, we set the alarm for 5am for what was supposed to be stunning views. It was really nice but finding out that there is a 5am whilst on holidays was a bit of a shock to the system.

Back in the cabin, the Editor didn't want me to go back to sleep. She was awake and that is how it must be for everyone. 

I can actually get my breakfast now with my eyes closed, but sometimes the scrambled eggs with herbs is with salmon, so eyes wide open it is.

Scrambled eggs, a fried egg, chicken and Cumberland sausage, hash browns, tomatoes and baked beans has been the brekkie of choice. And yes, the plates are quite big.

From here we headed to shore into the Old Town (obviously some marketing guru has been through every port in Europe and told them that "old" is essential for the tourist dollars). I still haven't seen a New Town.

Our first priority was a 2km walk up and down the hill that overlooked the ship. I believe it was another fortress. We didn't know the distance on starting.

Our problem was that the squiggly line the woman at Tourist info drew on the map was too squiggly and the first 20 minutes was consumed in finding the starting point. Past many 🐈 we walked. The 🐈 have free reign of the town as they once saved it from extinction (I won't give away the plot, but it did leave me asking questions). I hope you appreciate my use of the little pics for the first time in the blog's history. What next? Stories that make sense?

Finally we stumbled on some rocky stairs and figured that this must be the place. I would highly recommend you listen to this Talking Heads song.

A short walk upwards and we arrived at a small demountable building where tickets were 15 Euros pp. 

In the middle of the rocky track, they had positioned the most unlikely looking turnstile complete with power cord leading back to the office.

So upwards we climbed, stopping for air at every possible turn. These were the kind of annoying steps that are just too big to climb in one step, so step, shuffle, step it was. Sometimes there were handrails, sometimes just the possibility of falling down the mountain where your only hope of survival is getting caught on the many blackberry bushes that consume Europe.

On and on we climbed, stopped, looked up, saw the top and kept walking. Sometimes it was easier to walk next to the stairs. It was still very much uphill. 

But we made it, mocked the footwear choices of many (sandals and thongs), and I have never been prouder when we passed a woman  in flimsy sandals just at the start  of her walk as we finished, and Annette said very loudly to her "not sure that's the right footwear for this climb".

Sledge of the day. Every port I ask her if she wants to start a fight with the other cruise 🚢. Maybe she is thinking about it.

The walk down was faster and I have a feeling that sore muscles are on the horizon.

Back in the town (obviously old) we looked around the many shops, saw the required quota of holiday churches and headed back for lunch.

Burgers, fries and onion rings were good, minus the fish burger of the editor.

We headed back to have a look at the old monastery (just foundations), found large Pepsi on special for 95 cents and we're back on board.

Despite the rigours of the walk, Garmin demanded my pound of flesh so while the editor will put in what she did(), I ran and did a stretching class.

We then sat on deck and watched the scenery as we departed. Yes, the same scenery we saw at 5am but in reverse. Two small dolphins joined us for some of the trip, which was quite nice for someone who has always wanted to be a marine biologist. I will make sure not to hit any Titleists overboard from deck 10. 

I honestly don't remember dinner. Buffet food is blurring my mind.

The Old Fart (stupid autocorrect)

No tours booked today so it's just us and our legs on a walk to the Old Fort. Oh, we are in Corfu. There are 2 forts in the town that used to be just called forts, but the Uber Eats people kept delivering to the wrong one, so naturally they changed the names to old and new. They were pretty cluey back in the 1600's.

We made our way through the Old Town, paid our 10 euro and in we went. Unfortunately, nobody ever made an accessible fort or castle or anything easy to get to in the old days. They only thought of their own safety and not about future generations whose feet and legs are hurting after a long walk from the Buffet Ship (whose breakfast is weighing heavily) on our bones.

But it's good to knock off the Garmin demands for 10 flights of steps early in the day. This should be as bad as it gets, stair/uphill wise.

On the way back, it was like the town had come to life; 5,000 people from two cruise ships will do that.  The obligatory ice cream and Coke got us back to the ship alive.

The streets are very narrow, except for the one in the picture. Wide street means extra parking. 3 cars wide they parked to turn it into a narrow street again.

I had to do yesterday's run, which was almost 5km, so legs are currently not my friend.

At least the view was good.

Greece is the word

First stop on the cruise is Kefalonia. A short walk to our tour bus at a very reasonable time of 9:35. I think we lost an hour's sleep, last night or the night before. Daylight saving? No idea, but at the time of writing (the next evening), we are going to move our clocks back an hour.

The tour took us through the windy (swervy) hills to 2 caves. 

The first was 150 steps down, and what goes down must come up. On my cave scale of goodness, they were just ok.

We had an hour here when only 30 minutes would have been OK, but we had no place to be apart from a long 30 minute line for the next cave. It was a different sort with a small lake and Greek men with rowboats taking everyone a couple of hundred metres there and back again. Pretty good was the rating. 

A drive and 30 minutes in Sami have me wondering what was actually there, followed by the drive back to the port. 2pm.

We still had to walk to the stone bridge separating the harbour from a lagoon, and hopefully spot some turtles on the way. Achieved times 2. 

We still had time for an ice cream (not we, really) and a bottle of Pepsi Max for the room fridge (also not we).

No gym today as the 150 stairs each way plus the amount of total steps has done me in (Note: We've been without internet for what seems like an eternity. 2 days later I see that it was only 15,000 steps for the day. It seemed like more.) 6pm for an early dinner and French Open on TV.

A fish out of water

I'm trying my hardest to limit the amount of food I am eating. Unfortunately, I was born with the Buffet gene so it's not an easy thing to do.

Day 1 is a sea day so after breakfast had digested, to the gym I went.

It's been a long time since I did a proper treadmill run, but it wasn't a fast one so all is good. I decided I would do a stretching class after and thought I was doing a good job until I saw the female showoff on the other side of the gym doing handstands and then a stretch at the top. Maybe I will try that tomorrow.

I headed to the change room and found the sauna. The Editor had wondered if there was a sauna. Should I tell her? I did.

I found Annette on a deck lounge (because that's what the note she wrote said). No phone coverage so we have had to go primitive.

She went to a talk at 11:00 and I read my book that I had just borrowed from the library (more primitive goings on).

Heading through the Messina Strait was the first opportunity to see Mount Etna.

After mountain watching, I searched for Annette and found her in the restaurant having finished lunch. She said she had looked for me exactly where I was, but I think she may be embarrassed to be around me near buffets.

We were closer to the mountain so went to take some more pics. 

She went for a swim whilst I hit the burger bar. The steak sandwich was good but the onion rings produced one of those rare food miracles. Interlocking onion rings!

Be still my beating heart.

Next up was a proper afternoon tea in a proper afternoon setting. I have to admit that being served a selection of sandwiches and cakes is very off-putting and every time I blinked someone had just filled up my enormous cup of tea.

To the gym for a pilates class tomorrow on the flabby midship and then into the black and white, nice clothes for the dining room and black and white night.

I was already feeling uneasy and when they decided to hand me a black jacket, to fit in, I was just about done.

Think David Byrne in the "Once in a lifetime" video, and that's how I pictured myself. I hope nobody else captured a pic.

We ate fancy food quickly. I just wanted out and to be with my brothers in shirts and thongs in the Lido buffet.

Note: My fancy meal had fennel and I didn't hate it.

What to do after a fancy dinner? Wash your clothes of course. We figured out how to use the washing machine, and then found the instructions. 50 minutes later we used our instruction knowledge for the dryer, went and hit some golf balls upstairs, got the clothes and slept.