We didn't get up quite as early this morning. The announcement that we were able to go ashore to visit Corfu was made as we were walking to the dining room for breakfast. In that same announcement, they let us know that the high today in Corfu was expected to be 108 degrees. Whew!

Francesco greeted us as we entered the dining room, and told us that he had already sent muffins to my room, but not to worry, he still had some left . We ate a relatively simple breakfast. We both had the apple slices with cinnamon, and then Bryan had a bagel with cream cheese, and I had oatmeal (which they brought me soy milk for along with the brown sugar). Oh, and the muffins. They brought me those without asking, so I had a bit of those too. For anyone that had been concerned that I was not able to eat enough previous to the cruise, please put those worries to rest. Not only will Francesco not allow me to waste away, I am convinced that we will be stocked up with all the things they keep sending to my room. We will eat well in Rome when we leave the boat. ;)

After breakfast, we got off the ship and rode the complimentary shuttle to the terminal, where we hopped on a city bus and rode into old town. We walked around some getting a feel for the town. Occasionally we would hear the tones of chanting drifting out of the Greek Orthodox Churches we passed. Peaking inside, we saw priests in ornate robes. It was pretty neat.

It was nearing 9 o'clock at this point. We saw a Columbia Sportswear store, which was amusing. And lots of other shops and cafes. We were looking for a WiFi spot where we could FaceTime. Here in Greece we are 11 hours different (we sprung forward an hour last night) than home, so we were hoping to get some chatting in. But none of the Internet spots were open, so we kept on walking.

We came out of the little pedestrian streets to a road surrounding a small park with benches in the shade . As we moved towards the shade beneath the trees, the sound of bugs was LOUD. When we finally spotted one, it was a little beetle. It must be similar to what they have in the South: Cicadas. We walked away from the trees a bit, beneath hundreds of birds in the air, found a bench in the shade and sat down. To our surprise, we found the town had free WiFi available from there. So we FaceTimed Mom & Dad. The connection was not great, but it was good to be able to see them and talk again. :)

Then we read comments on this blog and FaceBook, and posted our Dubrovnik pictures and story. All the while the bugs and birds continued. Next stop was the old fortress. We paid for two tickets and went inside. There was a museum that held artwork from before the Venetian-Style overcame the native Corfu style. There was also a very old copy of the Gospel.

Further in to the fortress was an area you could climb up to a lighthouse for a view. Being suckers for a view, we sweated our way to the top of the hill. I teased Bryan that we seem to keep paying people money to climb stairs. But the view from the top was just as nice as we'd been told. We snapped a bunch of photos and then descended.

Done with the fortress, we walked back through town a bit. Then we walked along the waterfront back to the busses. The heat had pretty much gotten the best of us at this point . We took the busses back to the ship and were eating lunch before 12:30. Francesco had said if I wanted pizza today he would deliver special ingredients to the pizza bar, and they would be able to make me a pizza with soy tofu cheese. Intrigued, I told him I would like pizza for lunch. So after a little salad from the buffet, we went to the pizza bar and I told them my room number and that I was lactose-free. They didn't have the special ingredients, but they happily made me an individual pepperoni pizza without cheese. We took our food into the Piazza where it was cooler to eat. I enjoyed my pizza (which I've never had on a cruise before) and we went back to our room to relax.

Not long later there came a knock at our door, and a "special order for Mrs. Schmidt" arrived. It was a tofu pizza. The tofu was not a cheese substitute, it was sliced into triangles and laid on top. Too funny. Since our room was beginning to look like Horizon Court, I bagged up the muffins, stowed the cookies and crackers in a cabinet, and did my best to indicate that we would not be eating the pizza . What must our room steward think?!

Dinner tonight was pleasant but uneventful. Our table mates each made a guess as to how many desserts I would receive tonight. I won, conservatively guessing two. I had requested something chocolate. I got both chocolate ice cream and pudding.

After dinner we walked out to the promenade and looked towards shore. Through the warm, thick air, the shoreline going past was quite beautiful. There is more haze than I would have imagined. Not sure if that has to do with the humidity, or dust or what.

Then we wandered into the Princess Theater to see a ventriloquist act. Because, why not? About twenty minutes into the show (which was turning out to be pretty entertaining) an alarm sounded. And then a series of announcements began. Each time an announcement was made, the performer's microphone was shut off. The crew was moved to their emergency stations. The ventriloquist started back into her show. Finally, the show was stopped because of the safety precautions taking place. It turns out there was an electrical fire in one of the staterooms on the Emerald deck (nowhere near our stateroom). They extinguished the fire, with the help of the sprinkler system. They closed the fire doors in that area and did a series of procedures to ventilate the area and get rid of the smoke. The entire incident seemed to be handled calmly and efficiently . However, we did miss the second half of the show, which was a bummer.

We ordered some room service, and what we didn't eat we packed up for lunch tomorrow on shore. We will be docking at Katakolon at 7 a.m. From there, we hope to catch a train in to Olympia to see the site of the first Olympic games.

When our french fries were gone, I circled back to the theater to catch the end of the show. Picking up right where we'd left off, I saw the rest of the show. It was alright. I think it would have been better without the interruptions.

And that was our day. :) Stay tuned for stories about the Greek Olympic games.

Mer and I are just not hot weather people. Greece was genuinely beautiful, but just way too hot for us. I would be very happy to try this cruise again, but in the spring or fall. Still, we made the best of it and really enjoyed strolling around the ports on our cruise. We got in the habit of getting off of the ship early and doing our sightseeing in the mornings. We would then return to the ship for lunch followed by a siesta in our air conditioned cabin. This saved us from the worst of the heat, kept us rested for our adventures, and saved us cash on food by not eating out. We only had one scheduled excursion in all of our ports so we were able to keep our own schedule, which was really nice. We saw lots of other folks on the cruise really running themselves ragged trying to see everything they could. We had been traveling long enough and were in a groove, so we didn't feel rushed. It was great.