Today’s Daily Programme can be found here….
Another night and another slightly better sleep, I woke at 07:45 just as we were docking at the port of Heraklion in Crete. This is an unscheduled replacement for Mykonos where forecasted high winds made the tendering there unsafe. There’s a slight problem this morning, Jane has a slightly scratchy throat, which may be down to the Air-con, but may equally be my lurgy. Although I never had a scratchy throat. I went to breakfast alone with instructions to bring back a Bircher muesli and some honey, I got half of the order correct, I’ll need to dig up some honey from somewhere when I get a chance. After breakfast I was given the task of putting a wash on. I loaded it all up correctly, got the settings right and hit start all well and good. Unfortunately when I went back 40 minutes later it hadn’t started and the door light was flashing, a push of the door and I could see it starting to fill. Ah well, 40 minutes later and it was dryer time, I had specific orders for that as well, but I managed to fulfil those without issue.
We had a strange time for our Knossos excursion, 12:30 which meant a PG lunch was not available to us so we ate in the Lido Buffet for the first time this cruise. Jane had a veggie stir fry which she really enjoyed and I liked the look of the salad bar, which is not something people that know me would have expected, but I really fancied something light and it turned out to be as expected. It was a nice salad with blue cheese dressing and a tasty prawn/seafood mix.
After lunch we retrieved our laundry from the drier and headed to to dockside for our coach, where we met up with today’s tour guide who distributed headsets and the entry tickets for the archaeological site at Knossos. Jane commented that “that’s a mistake, we can’t be trusted to look after tickets”, and needless to say while we were walking from the coach to the entrance, a chap came forward saying he’d left his wallet with his tickets on the coach, the locked driver-less coach. Fifteen minutes later and a phone call from the guide to the driver, we were on our way for a walk around Knossos, with points of interest shown and interesting facts shared. SPOILER ALERT there is no labyrinth under Knossos, the labyrinth is Knossos.
It was quite tiring given I’m not in tip top condition so it was nice to get back to the coach. Out return included 90 minutes free time in Heraklion and when we parked up at Liberty Square to get dropped off the guide piped up asking a question over the intercom “was there anyone from coach 9” on our coach. It turns out there was and coach 9 was still at Knossos waiting for their last passenger to appear.
We were on an Oregano crisps hunt and Jane fancied finding a pharmacy as she needed some tissues. We found the crisps at the first kiosk, but Heraklion is no Cadiz when it comes to pharmacies, we found one but it was closed. After a bit of a stroll we decided to grab a snack and a drink, there were a bunch of restaurants around Liberty Square and these were full of locals which is my goto when it come to deciding where to eat. We chose a couple souvlakis and beers, which was a very good choice for 15 Euros.
When all was done, it was time for a bit of a rest so we headed back to the cabin for a lie down. It wasn’t long before I was sent off for a drink and as I wanted to see the sail-away. I headed up to the Lido deck where the sail-away was happening. Who’d have thought a Sail-away line dance was a thing, but it is, and a very good show everyone put on too! After the line dance sail-away show I grabbed a couple of take-away lattes from the Grills Lounge and headed back to the stateroom.
We were late getting ready and up to dinner so when we arrived our table-mates were just finishing off. They had also been out to Knossos and had also had fun and games in getting there. The PG restaurant served one of our favourite dishes this evening, the tandoori lamb cutlets, they are an excellent mixture of spicy and unctuous deliciousness. I had fully intended to take some photographs of the dishes and I got as far as the asparagus appetiser but when the entree arrived I forgot about everything and tucked into the lamb chops with gusto.