Today does dawn a much better day!  It is sunny, not a cloud in the sky, still chilly – but we’ll take the dryness!  Today we want to go to Mon Repos and visit the palace and explore the grounds, which are huge and have lots of trails around.  Our challenge is getting there, as all the taxi drivers want to do day long tours, not short runs out to Mon Repos.  We get outside the port, and talk to a couple of taxi drivers, who keep handing us off to other drivers down the line.  Finally we get one guy who will take us, and negotiate him down to 15 Euros, which is still crazy, but we need a ride, so…15 Euros it is.

I mean, it only takes about 10 minutes to get there, but we didn’t want to walk both ways as we’d decided to walk back into town and then to the ship.  The driver obviously overheard us discussing this, and is really sweet and helpful, telling us how to get back into town, what street to take, and showing us where Kanoni is if we want to walk up there.  Such nice people everywhere.

We walk into Mon Repos and hike up the entrance road to the “Palace” which is more a large home, than palatial.  We would have come here yesterday on the bus, but it was supposed to be closed on Tuesdays.  Even though a ton of NCL tours came here, we didn’t think we’d be able to go inside .  But when we get up to the Palace, and realize how small it is, we think that maybe they opened specially for NCL yesterday.  No matter, it is much better here today alone – because the house is not that big and it would have been crazy packed if the tours came in yesterday.

To say Mon Repos is underwhelming, is, maybe not an understatement, but….it is underwhelming.  The house itself is pretty and the exhibits inside give you a good idea of how the family lived in the 1800s and 1900s, but it really isn’t all that much to see.  The best parts of the interior were the large cupola on the 2^nd level and the curved staircase used to reach it.  Part of the attraction for us though is the exterior, because TV show, The Durrels of Corfu, used this home for shots in the show, so now we want to go back and watch the show again to see what we can recognize.

But the real crown jewel here for us, are the grounds and the views over the water.  The grounds are extensive, with trails all over the place.  A mini-Biltmore, if you will!  Just one whole heck of a lot older, with a Doric temple that was the sanctuary of Hera, lots of ruins strewn along the trails and a cool old church smack dab in the middle of the trails.  We wander around through the trees,  up and down hills, enjoying the nature.  We wish we had more time to more fully explore these trails, and get down to the shoreline where there is supposedly a pier, but with only a half day here today, we don’t want to spend too much time – not to mention the possibility of getting lost out here! Not an option!

We manage to find our way back out to the main gate, and cross the street to the cool Ayia Kerkyra church ruins…

…then make our way down the hill toward Anemomylos where we stop at the little café right on the water for a cappuccino, which comes with these great little croissants.  A perfect break in our walking explorations.  Then we head on to the windmill for the obligatory pictures, plus, all the cute little Greek fishing boats along the shore.  But also for great long shots across the bay to the Old Fortress.  Its such a gorgeous day!

Now we start our long march back to the ship. But quite frankly, it is such a pretty day, that it isn’t a slog at all..  We walk along the seaside promenade, carefully avoiding all the roped off places where the entire walk has fallen into the water, oops.  Then past the Swiss Consulat – Rageths! You are always with us everywhere we go! And on into the old city, entering through the Esplanade with the great columned temple type structures and stately buildings lining the squares (today we can actually look around and take pictures).

We short cut our walk through the old town, looking for these sweet rolls I had spied yesterday, but didn’t want to stop at the time.  As my mother always said, if you see something you want, get it, don’t wait, because we never did find those pastries throughout our entire 4+ KM walk!  But what we did find was this great little shop that was making fried donut type treats right on the street, and in the display cabinet next to the fryer was a huge piece of cheese pie.  Well, you know we’re doing that! After Santorini, we are totally craving these cheese pies (or Tiropita).  When I go in to pay, they also have these enormous wedding cookie type things, which I also have to try. So – we have our mid-morning (or late morning) snack which we take out to the little park between the old city and the water to eat. 

It is lovely sitting here it the sun with the New Fortress in the front of us, the sea behind us, snacking on our treats. The pie is excellent – different than the Santorini version, but still good.  The cookie is essentially a gigantic butter nut ball – good, but awfully dense.  Thank heavens for our water. 

Full and fulfilled, we continue our walk around the bay and into the port for lunch – like we need any – and a gorgeous sailaway where we get even more long views of the city and the Old Fortress.

And, all the cruise ships docked here through the pandemic.  There are 2 HAL ships, the Zaandam and the Volendam, as well as an MSC ship that is docked right next to us. We look them all up and it seems they stay here for a few weeks, then sail out for a bit (can’t remember where they go) then back.  It is amazing how many ships are still pretty much in mothballs all around Europe.  Crazy.

After sailaway, we do our normal thing, with the added fun of now watching all the Christmas decorations go up around the ship. Well, ok, fun isn’t exactly the right word, because as everyone knows, we don’t particularly care about that – but the Gingerbread houses and towns are truly amazing.  The one outside of Le Bistro appeared overnight and is incredibly detailed.  Love the train and station – as well as the snow covered mountain – and Santa and the reindeers flying above!  They actually have made a video of how they put it together which makes the whole thing even more amazing.

Then its back to our normal schedule and onto where ever we go tomorrow.  It is sort of a crap shoot at this point. Will we make it to Messina? Will there be a change?  What will happen next?  It keeps the adventure feeling going…..this is our ride home, so where ever the ship goes….so do we!