Chapter 1
Athens, Gythion,
and Corfu
Nov. 6, 7, 8, 9
We’re starting in Athens (Piraeus)
Wednesday, Nov. 6: Athens (Piraeus)
Arrival
As mentioned previously, we had to get a Uber to the yacht and I did not have the name of the dock handy, so the driver had to do a little riding around before we found the Star Legend and the proper terminal to use. We got there a little after 12 noon and I knew that WindStar did not normally start embarkation until 1:00 so we took some seats alongside other passengers in a waiting area and relaxed for a while. Shortly before 1:00 the crew was ready to start processing everyone in the boarding process. There was a little confusion at first, but things quickly got straightened out and we boarded by about 1:30.
As we boarded our Cabin Attendant took us and led us to our cabin. We dropped our hand luggage off in our cabin and headed to the Veranda for some lunch. After lunch we took a quick tour of the yacht but because of our cruise on the Star Pride in Iceland, we quickly found our way around.
Looking over the bow in Piraeus (note the people in the “hot tub”).
By this time our luggage had been delivered to our cabin so we unpacked a bit and got organized then relaxed a while, trying to make up for the sleep lost on the flight. We were scheduled to leave at 5:00 PM so a little before that we looked around and I found my preferred place to take departure photos from. I also set up my camera for my first attempt at a time-lapse video. I had my little (waterproof) camera on a small tripod with flexible legs that I could wrap around a railing in front of the Yacht Club on deck 8 for a good view. Right on schedule we pulled away from the dock.
Pulling away from the dock and terminal
Within the somewhat crowded and busy port, the yacht had to go rather slow and we had a tug-boat “escort” until we cleared the breakwater.
On the way out, we had a colorful sunset.
After we cleared the breakwater and the sky was getting dark, my initial time-lapse ended and I could check the results. If you would like to check the results, here is the time-lapse leaving Piraeus. Note that there are people in the hot-tub!
Once we were safely out to sea, we got cleaned up and headed to Compass Rose for a glass of wine before dinner, then to the AmphorA restaurant for dinner where we both chose the very good scallops as our entrée (with Alberino wine, of course). Then we pretty well established our standard activities for the evening: music in Compass Rose (listening to the Apaloosa band this night) with a glass (or two) of cognac.
Thursday, Nov 7: Gythion, Greece
If you do any of your own research on Greece, you might (probably will) find multiple other spellings for Gythion, especially versions starting with “H”. This is typical of Greek and Croatian names and I am using the spellings used in our itinerary
A reminder of where we are, in very southern mainland Greece
A tour of Sparta/Mystras and Olives
Today we had a tour lined up that would include the ancient town of Mystras, just up the hill from Sparta and also a visit to a Olive Museum. We started the day with breakfast in the Veranda restaurant focusing on the fresh fruit and the freshly made breads. This would be our most frequent fare, with occasional explorations to omelettes, scrambled eggs, sausage, cold cuts (especially smoked salmon) and table service items like pancakes and French toast. This would be our only port where we were anchored instead of tied to a dock, so at the appointed time, our tour group headed to the tender and made the short ride to the town dock.
The town dock at Gythion
We loaded into a bus and headed to Mystras, enjoying the view as our guide made a running commentary about the area and what we were about to see. It was about an hour ride to Mystras where we left the bus for a fairly long (in time) walk around the area. Mystras was at its peak in the 1200s to the 1600s. It is located up the hill from ancient Sparta of many Greek legends. (Not to be confused with the relatively new town by the same name not far away.) At the top of Taygetos mountain are the remains of probably the largest building complex, the Palace of the Despots.
The Palace of Despots at the top of the mountain
The palace was mostly built in the 1200s but added to over the following centuries. The “Golden Age” of Mystras was the 1300s and 1400s with many churches being built and artists coming to the area to produce their artwork, including as part of the churches. We toured several of the churches which had been largely, but not completely restored.
The church of Agios Demetrios
The church of Agios Demetrios was completed in 1270 and now contains a small museum with artifacts from the area.
The church of Hodigitria-Afendiko
We went into the church of Hodigitria-Afendiko and the interior and artwork was impressive, especially considering it is about 800 years old.
Part of the interior of church of Hodigitria-Afendiko
You might get a better feel for the size and finishing of the church from this short video of the interior. If you look closely at the photo above and the beginning of the video, you can see some frescos on a couple of the walls. Several of the churches had many ornate frescos decorating the interior with religious stories and scenes. In the church of Saints Theodore the walls were literally covered with the many frescos (below).
There were even more frescos in this church.
We spent a couple of hours looking around the ruins and reconstructed buildings and churches before loading back into our bus and heading to our next stop for a little refreshment. We stopped at an open-air restaurant a short distance from Mystras and were served small plates of bread, cheese, some fruit and drinks: nothing fancy but tasty and reasonably refreshing. While we were sitting at our table a cat came wandering by, obviously looking for someone who would give up some of their food, preferably some cheese. Of course the cat headed straight for us. We ended up giving it all the cheese (goat cheese) that we had left and it entertained us for a while.
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Cats seem to know who to hit up for some food.
When the cheese ran out, the cat moved on to other tables. Although this was definitely the “off-season” for tourists, it appeared to be reasonably well fed and healthy. Once the cat had eaten all it was likely to get, we loaded back onto the bus for the 45 minute ride back to Gythion and the Olive Museum.
Olives and olive oil are very important to these Greeks.
The museum was nicely done and interesting, with a number of displays showing how olives have been processed for their oil over the centuries.
Our guide explaining some old olive presses.
The museum was good but I think our guide was just a little too impressed with olives and olive oil. While most of the displays had signs in both Greek and English explaining what we were seeing, our guide started literally reading the information to us. This got old very quickly and people started wandering off from the main group, as we did. I think the guide figured out that it was time to end the tour and we got back into the bus for the short ride back to the dock.
Most of the people on the tour hopped on the tender and went back to the yacht, but I thought the harbor area was interesting enough to spend a few more minutes looking around and taking photos, such as the ones below.
Octopus, in various forms, is a favorite seafood of the area.
An interesting sculpture on a seawall
This cat was sacked out in a chair.
I finally headed back to the yacht for a slightly late lunch in the Star Grill (it stays open longer than the Veranda), a little rest (still fighting the jet-lag) and arranged some excursions for future days. This evening we again had dinner in the Amphora, this time with one couple from Canada and and another couple who travel a lot as he is a pilot of a major airline. After dinner we headed to the Compass Rose for some cognac and to listen to the Apaloosa group and their tribute to ABBA.
Friday, Nov. 8: At sea and Corfu arrival
I was still not getting a full good night’s sleep but this day would give me some time relax and rest up a bit. We would be “at sea” most of the day, sailing from Gythion to Corfu and not arriving until about 5:00 PM. At least it was smooth sailing and nice sunny weather. We did have several activities for the day, including a somewhat long presentation on the next several ports and excursions available at each of them. I was glad to see that a couple of excursions had been added that we could take advantage of. At 2:00 there was a wine tasting in the Cuadro restautant.
A good turnout for the wine tasting
The theme of the tasting was “Old world versus New world wines”. The sommelier had selected sets of wine of the same varital, one made in the old world (mainly France) and one in the new world (mainly California) and we were to compare how the countries and winemakers took essentially the same grape and created significantly different wines from them.
Lots of glassware for a simple tasting
As we discovered, a Cabernet dominate French Bordeaux tastes significantly different than a Napa Cabernet, and a French Chablis (Chardonnay) is much different from a Napa Chardonnay. In this instance, I preferred the French style in both cases.
A little while after the tasting was over, we arrived in the port of Cofu, docking behind a couple of other, somewhat larger, cruise ships already there.
Thankfully, one of the other ships left in the evening.
That evening we had reservations in the Candles restaurant, although it was a bit cool to eat outside, although a few people did. We both had a nice seafood dish and the bottle of Verdajo went very well. After dinner, another visit to the Compass Rose for a glass (or two) of cognac and music from the duo (from Paraguay) tonight.
Jose and Laura entertaining
Saturday, Nov 9, Corfu
Today we had an independent excursion and we ended up with a couple of other people from our yacht, and several from the other ship in port, for a total of about 10 people. We had a nice walk from the yacht to the cruise “terminal” where most excursions apparently started. We could have taken a shuttle bus, but the walk was pleasant. Once everyone was there, we loaded onto a small bus/van for the 40 minute ride to our first stop at “Sisi’s Palace”, or, more officially, the Achilleion Palace. Sisi was the nickname given to the Empress Elisabeth of Austria and Queen of Hungary by the local people.
Entrance to the Achilleion Pallace
Sisi had a mixed romantic and sad life with some unfortunate family relations and was eventually killed by an misdirected assassin. She had the palace constructed, partly as a way to escape from her mother-in-law. The palace was built (completed) in 1891 and is decorated with many Greek statues. Sisi was a fan of Achilles and the grounds include several statues of him, including one that is somewhat famous by Ernst Herter, a famous German sculptor. Herter was also commissioned to create numerous other sculptures around the palace and grounds.
A few of the sculptures by Ernst Herter: there will be more
We could not go into the palace because it was undergoing renovation, but I suspect the gardens were more interesting anyway. As we rounded one corner in the garden, there was a cat up on a wall, then another one coming down a walkway: soon there were about 5 or 6 cats wandering around, mostly looking for handouts. We did not have anything to give them, so they remained somewhat aloof and didn’t want to be petted.
One of the several cats: they all looked well taken care of.
One of the statues in front of the place was of Sisi herself and gave the impression that she was welcoming guests into her house.
Sisi welcoming guests to her house.
One courtyard at what I think was the rear of the palace was lined with statues of the 9 Muses. Just these statues had to be a major undertaking for a sculptor.
Some of the nine Muses
As I mentioned, Sisi liked Achilles and the famous “Achilles Dying” sculpture is in a courtyard. In the photo below, the Achilles Dying sculpture is seen from the rear, flanked by two other sculptures that could represent Achilles in a running pose.
Dying Achilles flanked by two runners
Another series of sculptures represented a story/legend/myth of a woman. The short version of the legend is that the woman was so beautiful that she had to disrobe in front of judges to prove she really was that beautiful. (There is much more to the story, but further research is left to the reader.)
Subjects of a rather long, involved legend/myth
After Sisi’s death, the palace was owned by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany but he did not like that the main statue of Achilles was the one of him dying, so the Kaiser commissioned another statue of Achilles in a more powerful pose. Some time after our tour, I found that the palace was sometimes used for movies and that the casino scene in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only was filmed at the Achilleion Palace.
This statue of Achilles is in a more prominent location.
After we had enough of Achilles and the other Greek symbols, we loaded back into the bus for a short ride to Kamoni point. Kamoni is actually a district of Corfu town and is one of the most photographed scenes on Corfu. The church on the nearer island is the church of Panagia Vlacherna and the further island is called “Mouse Island”. The name came about not because of any mice on the island, but because someone thought it looked to be in the shape of a mouse.
No, no mice on Mouse Island
We stopped on a point overlooking this scene where there were a couple of restaurants and gift shops and the all-important restrooms. There were also one or two cats, but they appeared well fed and had little interest in us.
After a short look around, we got in the bus and headed to Corfu Town where the bus let us off with our guide in front of an old fortress and next to a large park or plaza.
The Spianada plaza or square
The Spianada combines sports fields, walking paths, music pavilion, Venetian fountain, and gardens to make up the largest in-town square in Greece. We walked across the square to the Old Town part of Corfu Town and took a short walking tour. Our guide led us down several shopping streets and into one of the local churches (no photos allowed).
The main shopping street in Corfu’s Old Town
Corfu appeared to have something of a “thing” about a relatively unknown citrus fruit, the Kumquat. I know about the Kumquat because, when growing up, we had 3 or 4 Kumquat trees in the yard. Kumquat trees don’t get very big, only around 6 – 8 feet tall, and the fruit ripen to a yellow-orange color and are about the size and shape of a very large olive.
Anyone want some Kumquat Liquor?
Anyway, we saw a number of products made from Kumquats, as well as fresh fruit along the streets of Corfu Town. Unlike most citrus fruits, the Kumquat skin/peel is tasty and somewhat sweet. Many people prefer to eat the skin rather than the interior part of the fruit. Me? I liked both.
Can you find the Kumquats in this photo of a fruit market?
Judging by the several fruit markets we saw, quite a few kinds of fruit are grown on the semi-tropical island. After this quick orientation to the Old Town, our guide turned us loose and said to meet back where the bus had dropped us off in an hour and 45 minutes. We continued in the shopping area for a while and found a number of shops selling carved wood items that were advertised as locally made.
Susan is inspecting some of the wood carvings.
Since we are not big shoppers, not even big “lookers”, we left the shopping area and wandered around the large square and along the waterfront. There were a couple of museums, art galleries, and government buildings which all looked rather large and impressive for the size and population of the island. But, much of the island’s economy is built around tourism, so I guess the museums and galleries make sense.
There is a large old fort adjacent to the square and we considered visiting it but by then we would have run short of time, so we just wandered around until time to get back to the bus.
Part of the old fortress
Back on the bus, we had a short 15 minute ride back to the cruise terminal building and then a nice walk back to the yacht.
I had been having trouble with the temperature in our cabin for the past day or so: no matter what I did to the thermostat, the cabin just kept getting colder. I stopped by the reception/information desk and described the problem and they said an engineer would come to our room soon. In about 15 minutes a young man showed up and apparently he had seen this problem before. After I described the problem, he took a panel off the ceiling and checked some of the mechanical items up there, finally saying he had to go get a part from inventory. He returned in 10 minutes, replaced a part (a solenoid controlled mixing valve), did some testing, and proclaimed it fixed. He was right: we had no further problems. While you don’t like to have things “break”, things do happen and getting a quick, competent, response to a problem is the next best thing to not having a problem at all.
We pulled away from the dock at Corfu just a little before sunset, which gave me the opportunity for some sunset photos. I thought the one below, with the WindStar logo on a flag, was rather appropriate.
I think WindStar marketing might like this one.
Another dinner in AmphorA and we once again sat with our friends Chuck and Vicky (from Sonoma, CA), who we had met at dinner on our first evening. That was followed by, you guessed it, cognac and music in Compass Rose.
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