Day 12 - Saturday 5th September

Breakfast in the hotel courtyard was just as delicious and pleasant as yesterday. We had decided to go to a museum this morning that was only about 500m from the hotel. This museum has artefacts that date back more than 500 years BC. We had to check out of the hotel by 12 noon but we didn’t have to be on the cruise boat until 4pm. So we left our luggage with the hotel.

Suzy had arranged to meet a work colleague for lunch. The work colleague, Suzanne, happened to be in Corfu with her partner Eric as part of their holiday in Europe.

As it turned out, their parents were with them too. Eric’s parents (George and Jean) live on the island of Corfu south of Corfu town. George is Greek and Jean is English. Suzanne’s parents (Dot and another Eric) are from Manchester and had come to Corfu to spend some time with Suzanne and Eric. Eric senior is retired and so they spend a lot of time travelling. They have another daughter who lives in the US in South Carolina.

The arrangement was to go to a restaurant in the centre of town that has a great reputation. They told us that Rick Stein did one of his TV shows there a couple of years ago and George and Jean happened to be eating in the restaurant that day. I don’t watch cooking shows but apparently Rick Stein has a high-rating cooking show on TV and so everyone on earth (apart from me) knows all about him.

We had a very pleasant lunch followed by coffee at the Liston café again under the trees next to the cricket oval. I thanked Eric senior for not bringing up the subject of England’s recent victory over Australia in the Ashes cricket series. We then discussed the tour and cricket in general.

Suzy and I had to leave them at 3:30pm to walk back to our hotel, collect our bags and catch a taxi to our cruise ship which was waiting for us at the same port where had arrived yesterday morning on the car ferry. When we arrived just before 4pm, a few of the other passengers were already there and the others arrived soon afterwards.

Although the cruise boat can take 34 customers, there seemed to be only about 18 at the briefing. There is another Australian family – a mother, her two daughters and a friend of the daughters. There are two German families, a Columbian family, an Austrian man and others I haven’t met yet.

The cruise coordinator, Thanos, gave us an introductory talk and outlined what we will be doing for the week. Suzy and I realised that we wouldn’t have enough cash to go all the special tours on the various islands and so we walked to find an ATM near the port.

At 7:15pm, we all assembled on the top deck to be introduced to the remainder of the staff. The captain then gave us a demonstration of the safety procedures. He plans to sail out of Corfu during the night but there is some doubt as to which island we will go to first because of a storm that is forecast.

Dinner is scheduled for 8pm each night. Tonight it consisted of several courses and as much wine as we wanted. There were more people present for dinner than had been at the afternoon briefing session.

At our table, there was the Austrian man (80 years old) from Vienna and the Columbian family (the father who works for Kimberley-Clark, the daughter who works for Pepsi/Lipton and the mother who only speaks Spanish).

Suzy and I went for a short walk after dinner to get some exercise and to work off dinner. Later, Suzy tried a neat shot of Ouzo from the bar.

Our cabin is very small. It contains a small double bed, a bedside table and a built-in lowboy. Once we put one bag on the lowboy and another bag on the floor behind the door, there wasn’t much space to stand. The ensuite is like a small cupboard with hand basin, shaving cabinet, toilet and shower nozzle. There is no separate shower recess.

We were in bed by 9:30pm.