Mediterranean Cruise - Kekira, Corfu, Greece

Today we arrived at Corfu, a Greek island that is new to me. The initial view was beautiful, as expected. Our tour took us first to Achillion Palace, built by the Empress Elizabeth (also known as Sissi), wife of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph. She spent a lot of time estranged from her husband, was not allowed to raise her older children, and so, did a lot of traveling. She fell in love with the island of Corfu, and there built a palace that was dedicated to Achilles. She retreated there after the unexpected death of her son, Rudolf, apparently a suicide. The palace was later bought by Kaiser Wilhelm II. The painting of him is unusual, as it shows both hands. Most of his portraits show only the right hand, because the left one was deformed.

The grounds of the palace are extensive and beautiful, as are the views from the gardens. The interior of the palace is very ornate (you can find better photos than I was able to take if you Google Achillion Palace). Our next stop

was Kanoni, supposedly a place where the French had left a canon - if they did we never saw it, just some nice views, including Mouse Island, named for its shape.

On our drive back to Kekira

we passed some

Roman ruins. When we left the bus, we walked past the monument to the Ionian Islands. The bus had

stopped near the old fort, so we had a good view of it. We walked around the town a little bit, and saw the church of St. Spirion, the patron saint of Corfu. After that we had some free time for shopping before heading back to the ship. We weren't interested in souvenirs, but we did findsome Mythos beer, which was

quite pleasant.

While we enjoyed our tour, Corfu was not as interesting or as beautiful as the other Greek islands I've been to.

Mediterranean Cruise, Dubrovnik, Croatia

Our visit to Dubrovnik, Croatia was long awaited. We were supposed to go to Split, Croatia on the world cruise, but were unable to go ashore due to very rough seas (that port requires us to drop anchor and use tenders to get ashore). We were blessed to have a beautiful, sunny day, and an excellent guide, Kristina, for our "Cultural Dubrovnik" tour.

The first stop was the old walled city of Dubrovnik. We entered by crossing over a draw bridge. The entire city, including the wall, is built of limestone. The walled city has been designated a UNESCO world heritage site. One can walk on top of the wall (we didn't have time to try that), and there are many interesting things to see in the city. The city is protected by its patron saint, St. Vlaho. One can still find evidence of the 1992-1993 war, known as "The War", when Yugoslavia was splitting into independent states. We explored a church, a monastery, a cathedral, and a governmentbuilding. The town was ruled by a council, and each month a different man would be chosen leader. For that month the man had to live in the government building ALONE (no wife, no nothing) while he was there. I'll bet that was interesting! At the end of our tour of the city we had a little free time for shopping and other sightseeing. All the travel souvenirs we brought back came from here, because we felt like it would be the most exotic and appealing place to

have gifts from.

After a brief photo stop along the coast, our next stop was Cavtat (pronounced Sov-tot), the old

Dubrovnik seaport, which is now a resort. We had a little bit of a guided tour, plus a little time to shop again. The waterfront area was very pleasant. We had to pay to use the restrooms, but they were very clean, and not too expensive.

Finally we headed out to Konavle province, where

we would be visiting

a farm where they produce their own wine and olive oil. We had been told we'd have lunch on the trip, and it turned out that lunch would be around 3PM, the last part of the trip. Needless to

say there were some people who

were very upset about that. I have to agree that it would have been nice to know that beforehand. Along the drive we saw the

strange looking building that looks like a windmill without blades. It is a ham smoker. We also learned that in the rural areas, when a son gets married, the family builds a new house onto the old one, so the family ends up

living in what looks like a row house on their farm. Finally we arrived at Kuca Glavic, and were greeted by the family, and live music. We were first treated to local figs and a shot of raisin brandy (very strong). This was followed by a tour of the winery and olive oil press, and then lunch. The lunch included some of their red wine (which

was quite nice), home made bread, sausage, potato salad, and tomato salad. While we ate we listened to the two

folk musicians (a group called Klapa Astral), who played accordian and guitar, and also sang. They were

really good, and they made the lunch even more enjoyable with their good harmony and

upbeat music. We bought a

small bottle of their olive oil, and a small framed embroidery (they do beautiful embroidery work) as souvenirs.

By the time we got back to the ship, it was time to dress for dinner. Needless to say, we weren't very hungry, so ate a light dinner. This was an altogether enjoyable day. Dubrovnik, or anywhere else in Croatia, is on my list of places I'd like to return to.

Mediterranean Cruise 10/5/2009 Venice, Italy

This cruise started out in a less than stellar way. For starters, while we were driving to the airport in San Antonio it was pouring rain. It had stopped long enough for us to load our car, but there was a huge accumulation of water on the highway, which got into places in the car that made several engine lights come on. We did make it otherwise safely to the airport and had an easy trip through security and on time takeoff. Our landing in Chicago, where we had to change planes (and airlines) was superb - one of those rare ones where you had to figure out that we'd landed. Our flight over the ocean between Chicago and Frankfurt was more than an hour late getting off the ground. We made up some time in the air, but not enough. Our seats were near the back of the huge plane, and when we got to security there were an incredible number of people waiting to get through. By the time we got to our gate, the flight was long gone. Frankfurt airport is spread out over a large area, and we had to walk all the way from our gate (26) to the ticket desk, which was beyond the security area, to get our tickets changed. The clerk kindly gave us a voucher for €15, which was enough to buy us each a sandwich and bottle of water. We had to wait less than three hours for the flight, but the new one was leaving from gate 36. On the overseas flight the lights had come on in the plane cabin about an hour after we finally decided to try to get some sleep, so by the time we did all this walking, hauling our carry on bags and computer, we were wiped out. The flight to Venice was uneventful, but trying to find out what was happening from the Holland America people who were there to meet us, was difficult. We did make it onto a bus that took us to the ship. The first thing we did was take a short nap, because by that time we'd been up for more than 30 hours. At dinner we were surprised to see that our traveling companions had already arrived.

The next morning when we went to breakfast, it was raining, which didn't look promising for walking around the city. However, by the time we were ready to leave the ship the rain had stopped, and we had beautiful weather for explo

ring Venice. We walked from the ship all the way to the Piazza San Marco, with a slight detour to buy me a handbag, so I'd have something for formal nights. A formal purse was the one thing I'd forgotten to pack, which means it had been too long since I'd been on this kind of cruise. We also decided to walk back to the ship. In retrospect that was not a real smart idea, because we were still tired,we got a bit disoriente

d, and ended up walking at least five miles round trip. It was very pleasant to walk through Venice when there weren't huge throngs of tourists, yet we were surprised to see how many tourists were there. Apparently the recession hasn't completely killed the possibility of travel for many people, a good thing. While walking we saw an unusual vegetable at one of the outdoor markets (looked like broccoflower with pointy to

ps), and of course, plenty of Murano glass. We also saw a large, gold colored Bvlgari handbag, with a price tag of €1700! Can't imagine paying that much for something like that, especially when there's no way I'd ever carry it if I had it. By the time we got back we were ready for lunch and a relaxing afternoon. We played team trivia (we were disappointed that we didn't win, because the prize was mugs), and of course attended the life boat drill.

Wurstfest, New Braunfels, Texas

Wurstfest is a huge event that ran from October 30 through November 8, 2009, in New Braunfels, Texas. I had never heard of it before, but it sounded like fun, so we went, with our son Scott & his wife Tara, in tow. They also met up with some friends there. The place is like a fair grounds, with a ferris wheel, a big tent with music near the entrance, and further in, the Wursthall and marktplatz. There were vendors of souvenirs (of course) and many food vendors. You could get wurst on a stick, a sampler wurst kabob, funnel cakes, potato pancakes with applesauce, pork chops on a stick, fried dill pickles, fried cheesecake, and fried oreos, among other offerings. Almost forgot to mention that they also serve beer, which you can only buy with tickets. They have some German beers, along with standard American beers, and of course Shiner Bock, our native Texas beer. We did not try the cheesecake, but we did have the oreos and dill pickles. The oreos weren't bad; the dill pickles, which were battered and deep fried, and served with ranch dip, were wonderful. I'm not usually a fan of dill pickles, but these truly were wonderful.

We found a place to sit in the Wursthall, where we enjoyed our beer and food, while listening to a really great band. We expected German music, and it all sounded somewhat like that, but they played quite a variety of styles, including blue grass and Stars & Stripes Forever, complete with piccolo. It was a very enjoyable evening, not as crowded on Friday evenings, apparently, as it is on Saturday evenings. There were lots of people there, many of whom were wearing strange hats, and some of whom were carrying tall

stacks of empty

plastic beer pitchers. Despite all the beer drinking going on the vast majority of the people were very well behaved (we did see one escorted out by police, but he didn't look drunk, so who knows what he was up to).

The facilities here are nice. The restrooms are big enough to handle the crowds with very little waiting. This is the only place I've ever been where the line in the ladies' room

is for the sinks!

They have a website: www.wurstfest.com; they already have dates scheduled for the next three years. If you're in the area, it's a fun event to go to.