Thursday 9 September 2010
Still haven’t got onto the Internet. It is so expensive. Only 25e for 1 hour and no guarantee that you can log in and there is no refund if you can’t. I am still writing this as a word document and ‘when’ we can get onto the net I will cut and paste the previous days. Hopefully when we get to Dubai.
This morning started with our breakfast and it is going to be a long day. We sail to Crete and then this afternoon we will dock at Santorini.
I will write more when we do what is on the cards.
Well, we arrived in Crete, the town of Agios Nicolaos. It is 7am and we leave again about 11am to go to Santorini.
Crete is the 5th largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, extending about 160 miles from east to west and from 6 – 35 miles in breadth. It is a small town which for many years has attracted many visitors. It is in the heart of the Bay of Mirabello. The water is so blue and very, very clear. It is also the place where tourism first started in Crete.
I bought a nice brown leather handbag, sandals and Sandy got a wallet (without the moths!!!!!). As we didn’t have a great deal of time here, we headed back to the ship, ready for sailing.
It is very smooth sailing to Santorini. After we had our lunch we just amused ourselves on the ship until it was time to disembark into Santorini.
We did our own thing on Santorini. It is about 29sq miles in area. Their principle products are wine, fruit, olive oil, wheat and tobacco. We ended up going with Kel & Liz and we had such a good time. We had to go ashore by tender boats as the ship could only go to within 15 minutes of the shore. Santorini is a most beautiful town. It is perched high on a hill and all of the ‘houses’ are painted white with blue trim eg doors, window frames etc.
The views are just something to behold. We went up to the top of the old town by cable car – 4e per person each way. I don’t know whether I was that keen on it but it beats either going by donkey or walking.
We did some more shopping there and Sandy bought me a beautiful small glass perfume decanter. I remember Sandy’s Dad bought his Mum one every town or city that they went to on their overseas trips. She had quite a collection of them and they were beautiful.
We stopped at a cafe and had a drink and the view was just spectacular. You could see forever and I think I could have 2 weeks there without any trouble, just doing nothing and having a relaxing time. Time to get back on the ship. We had to be back by 8 as the ship was sailing to Piraeus in Greece, 131 nautical miles away.
Between 8 – 10pm we had to settle our accounts (which didn’t worry us as we had a credit card) and pick up our passports. When they took our passports they gave us a receipt for each one and you had to present the receipt to get the passport.
Wally and Helen still weren’t back on the ship as they did the excursion. Sandy got our passports and everything was fine. I was glad to have it back in my possession. (I thought).
We hung around waiting for Wally & Helen. We sat on the top deck with Liz & Kel in the shade and had a drink. It was so peaceful and Liz decided to go and get their passports. She came back with a look of concern on her face. Wally was down at Reception (where we were to get our passports) and they had lost Wally’s passport. Helen had hers and all hell was breaking loose.
Well, from one extreme to another, Sandy went down to see if he could help. Wally was not amused and neither would I be. The steam was coming from both ears, mouth and any other opening he had. He came back to his room and the staff said that they would contact him by 10pm. He was not a happy chappie.
We waited until about 10 and we had a knock on our cabin door. Here was a very pleasant staff lady who asked if we had our passports (Wally & Helen were in the cabin next to our, by the way). I showed her mine and she asked who had collected them. I said Sandy (he was in the shower) and she asked to see his. I gave this to her and oh! s..., he had Wally’s passport. Needless to say that it was Sandy’s that was missing. Thank God the staff lady had Sandy’s in her pocket. Well, what else can you say after that. She asked me to accompany her to Wally’s cabin. She must have apologised 10 times to Wally but he wasn’t buying it until he was told where his passport was. After all was settled down we opened a few beers and everybody seemed to calm down.
We all went to bed exhausted but happy that all was found.