CORFU

We woke next morning to the skybluest skyblue sky ever.

And new posh neighbours! 

(Silver Seas is luxury cruising)

There is never a dull moment being married to my Husb. Why go on a bus or train or even an organised P+O excursion when YOU CAN HIRE A JEEP!!!!?

It was a cute little jeep but it was the hairiest ride ever! For the first 20 minutes anyway. Sat Nav doesn't ask you if you are tourists or if you are used to a left hand drive or if you are happy to be thrust into the rush hour traffic of Corfu Town.

We wondered if we would see our children again.... 

busybusy

bikes

dogs

impatient locals

rising blood pressure

yikes and double yikes

phew.

But by the time we arrived at Achillion Palace, Husb had got the hang of the gears, and had resisted the temptation to try out the off-road gadgets.

Achillion Palace shone in the sun. It was named in honour of Achilles (very fitting as I have suffered with my delicate little tendons all my life)

It had nice artwork at the top of the stairs...

and the man himself, pulling the famous arrow from his famous heel...

and standing proud at the end of the garden, on the lookout. 

He was a big chap.

This is what he keeps his eye on.

An impressive sight.

But I had a sea to get in!

So with fresh confidence at the jeep wheel, Husb drove to Paleokastritsa, through some stunning scenery. (I doubt he saw much of that though haha) WHAT a very pretty bay.

In fact there are 6 little bays of absolutely beautiful turquoise water that was just crying out for a swimmer.

NO ONE was in the sea.

I soon realised why.

I nearly died. 

The freezing cold ice cold water seemed to shut down every working organ inside me, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't speak, Davina McCall suddenly had even more respect from me (though to be fair she DID wear a couple of wetsuits)

I know it was pre-season but I was shocked at how cold the sea was. 

"QUICK, HUSB, TAKE A PHOTO!"

BUT ....I can now tick off IONIAN SEA! YAY!

IONIAN SEA - TICK!

What a beautiful place.

 I appreciate it would be sooooooo busy at the height of season but it was peacefully quiet when WE visited and so so so sooooo turquoise.

CRYSTAL CLEAR WATER

We walked up the hill for good views from the monastery at the top (would you believe it, it was closed!)

Jeep selfie haha =)

We like to cram a lot into a day so we dropped Jeepyjeep off and then walked into town for a mozey and managed a bit of free wifi at the Black Cat cup of tea place. Although when we thought about it afterwards, £3 for a teabag was actually PAYING for the wifi... hmmmm ..we were so obviously off the cruise ship....

The sailaway was picturesque, sparkly sea and Corfu Castle.

Twinkly water...

and still not a wave in sight. 

We even had a sunset. 

"Oi Robben, please take a photo"

And the poor boy with a Robben shirt on kindly obliged. :)

DAY AT SEA

Sailing through the Messina straits between Italy and Scicily.

The Strait of Messina is 20 miles (32 km) long and from 2 to 10 miles (3.2-16 km) wide, separating the Italian peninsula from Sicily and connecting the Ionian andTyrrhenian seas. The massive amounts of water being funneled into a relatively small space creates strong currents and whirlpools. 

Aawwww Sachin made me an elephant with the towels :)

We sailed past Stromboli, the most active volcano on earth. It has been erupting continuously since 1932 WOW!

And because it was a SEADAY it was time to dressyuppy again.

It was turning out to be a terrific week.

Next stop MONTENEGRO

While others on board were still asleep, WE had ordered room service breakfast in bed ready for the sail-in to Montenegro but when it came, we had already arrived at a very quaint looking KOTOR.

Kotor is a walled town, a fjord-like seaport and very well preserved UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 1979 a catastrophic earthquake severely damaged Kotor and we saw evidence of the old and the new as we walked around this lovely town. ZESTY came too, I thought I may as well spread the Word.

We were welcomed with mini doughnuts and figs as Ventura was the first cruise ship of the season to visit.

 The Clock Tower in the Square of Arms town square had to be rebuilt and straightened after the 1979 earthquake. 

We didn't go inside the 17th Century Palace...

but we DID go inside the Cathedral of St Tryphon.

It was magnificent inside. Very impressive. It also suffered damage in the earthquake but has now been restored to its former glory.

It was a fabulous Cathedral but after a day at sea yesterday what we really wanted was SOME EXERCISE!

We could see a flag up here.... it was a FORT! The Fortress of St Ivan. We HAD to climb up to it!

A quarter way up. The red roofs reminded us of Dubrovnik.

Half way up.

 Zesty was getting higher.

It was 1,350 steps up to the top.

We had great views over Kotor bay.

Pulpit rock was the perfect place to do a celebratory plank.

If there had been a mirror up there I may have lifted my hips slightly higher.

It might not look very high up but Ventura is a big ship and here it looks like a tiny boat.

Trust me... we had climbed up a high hill.

This is  how steep it was.

We had a funny moment when we got back down. A quick cuppa in Sara Cafe gave us a few minutes of free wifi.  Husb said "Have you got a signal?" While his phone was searching for a signal with his spinny wheel spinning....I was whatsapp-chatting to Jean in Australia! Montenegro to Australia and back. Wonderful stuff! 

Whoever would have thought the mumster would get to grips with technology? And steal all the available signal!

Another meander around the square, an hour on deck in the sun, dinner and classical singer Victor Michael for the evening entertainment ...

and Aliholli in a black dress! Black? Whatever next?

Cruising the Med...VENICE

The schneaky week away on P+O Ventura turned out be quite magnificent.

Everything went right.

Nice flights (!!)  (we hate flying) calm seas, fabulous ports, superb weather, good food, lovely cabin, a generous Sachin, plentiful biscuits, a cabin kettle, amazingly fabulous entertainment, and would you believe it, the very first person we saw going up the Ventura gangplank was RICH!!!! "Spud" was on our boat! WE were on Spud's boat! It was a very loud shriek when we saw each other. (I had totally forgotten he had gone to work on the cruiseships.)

Anyway, Drake and The Pixen very kindly got up at silly o'clock to take us to Manchester Airport and that was the last we saw of our cases-they went down the shute in Manchester and were next seen in our cabin in Venice.

Because we had such an early flight we had A WHOLE DAY in VENICE before we set sail YIPPEE!

P+O had laid on a free shuttle boat (the Giudecca route) but we shunned that because Husb wanted to do Venice PROPERLY so we walked across to the PEOPLE MOVER so we could hop on a vaporetto and sail along the Grand Canal to St Mark's Square. He's such an experienced tourist...

There weren't many gondolas about.

We got off at St Mark's Square...

where the domes looked beautiful against the skybluesky...

and we paid to go inside St Mark's cathedral and  upstairs where all the mosaics were.

They used an awful lot of gold tile.

Looking out into St Mark's Square- it really wasn't that busy.

San Moise, Venice.

Picturesque Venice.

Teatro La Fenice Opera House. (very famous)

 I DID eat a slice of pizza in Venice, that's my 100% record, 3 times out of 3 I've eaten pizza in Venice- hardly any tomato sauce but plenty of salt and it was a delicious combination.

Snack attacked and ready for culture (we are such vultures), we went into the

 Santa Maria Della Salute

which was huge inside and very tranquil, being just far enough away from all the crowds to keep it peaceful and there was no queueing to see the artworks by Tintoretto and Titian.

It was a great day, what a bonus to have had so much time in Venice. We had anticipated a long check-in and maybe a lifeboat drill in the middle of the afternoon but the check-in was quick and the lifeboat drill was at 7. I did, however break my sunglasses and Husb managed to lose a 50 Euro note, ooops.

The sail out was lovely.

and then it was dressy uppy wendy house malarkey for dinner.