What a good night’s sleep, one of the beauties of a Cunard cruise is how comfortable the beds are, It doesn’t matter what class you’re travelling, either down with the rowers in steerage or up with the nobs in the Grills, we all get the same immensely comfortable Sealy Cunarder mattress and coupled with a quilt of the perfect weight makes for a really good night’s sleep. Anyroad, I woke up, raring to go at 07:30, which is actually 06:30 in real money as the clocks went forward an hour last night, and jumped in the shower. my first lecture was set for 10 am so I wanted to get all my ducks in order for then. Jane wasn’t so happy, I think she was regretting not ordering room service as I was dragging her out at 8:30. We were the only ones of the three tables in our group of tables at breakfast so Jane had to put up with my conversation. I started with the same Bircher Muesli as always and today I decided to have eggs Benedict, well egg Benedict as I had a single half muffin rather than a whole one, That hit the spot nicely and set me up for a morning’s learning about stuff at the Insights lectures.
First up was Professor Paul Sanders who gave his second lecture about conspiracy theories and how to use critical thinking skills to avoid being sucked in by them, an Insight lecture that is very relevant in today’s political climate. I’ve seen this lecture previously and it was just as good the second time around reinforcing the need to apply critical thinking to things presented as fact when all they are are opinions. The second lecture was by the keynote speaker, Eric Knowles, famed for the BBC TV series Antiques Roadshow and also other antiques related TV shows like Bargain Hunt. His lecture was on artist Gustave Klimt and the Austrian Arts and Craft movement “Wiener Werkstatte”. I knew nothing about Klimt previously and really enjoyed the talk, it was obviously something he’s passionate about and that came across in the presentation.
The weather is looking a lot better today so I was to meet Jane back at the room before lunch as she was going to take advantage of the sun on the balcony. It’s nice, but not quite warm enough, there’s still a bit of a chill in the air if you’re out of the sun. We had lunch in the Queens Grill dining room, and in contrast to this morning all three tables were occupied so we had a good old natter while having a very pleasant lunch, I had a couple of very nice little spring rolls to start followed by a spaghetti Bolognese, a little highly seasoned, but not too much to spoil it.
After lunch we retired to the balcony again for a little more relaxing in the sun. We’re due to arrive late in Heraklion tomorrow for some reason beyond my ken and because of this the shore excursions have been rescheduled. We hadn’t booked anything for tomorrow so it didn’t really affect us, we’d previously visited Knossos so didn’t want to do that again and in the end decided on a walking tour as by doing this we avoid using the shuttle to get to the port gates and we’d end up dropped off in Heraklion directly. The only issue is the tour starts at 12:15 so we will miss lunch in the restaurant, this allows us to grab something ashore, we’ve had a really nice Gyros before in Heraklion town on a previous cruise.
After a bit of lie down it was time for the Trivia quiz in the Wintergarden on deck 9, we weren’t awful, but we only managed 12/20 against a winning score of 16/20. So we decided to drown our sorrows in the Commodore Club. Today’s cocktail of choice for Jane was a QEII and I predictably had a Doombar. Very nice it was too. After this is was time to get primped up ready for dinner, and while back at the room Jane decided to try the Airwrap one last time and lo and behold the damned thing started to work which brought a smile to my face as this was several hundred dollars in hairdressing appointments saved.
We had rack of lamb ordered from the A La Carte menu, and Jane was going to share Bananas Forster with the guests on the next table to us, this was lucky for me as I’m not a fan of rum. I started with the squid which was very interesting, a whole lot of bold flavours in there and then the lamb, we’d asked for it ping and this was positively Baa-ing, I was worried that it might be too rare, but it was delicious and as tender as can be. Jane had the Foster as stated before and I had raspberries and cream which came sandwiched between two sable biscuits and a side order of vanilla ice cream that had been over ordered with the bananas which I saved from being wasted. I then had a cheeky cheese and biscuits, a lovely bit of Stilton and an equally nice piece of Cheddar.
After that we retired to the Commodore Club for a nightcap before bed