Our First Cruise - Tuesday 18/05/2010 Corfu

We woke to the captain’s announcement that once again the winds were too strong for the liner to dock but this time he was prepared to use the tenders to take us ashore.
We waited the customary hour before boarding a tender and it was the one which took the ship’s soccer team ashore to play Corfu University, the players were mainly Philippians but the Robbie Williams was also playing – he had brought the kit on board after some problem with the intended strip. We later learnt that they lost 1-3. As we crossed to the shore the heavens opened and it rained hard. We got off the tender and took shelter on a veranda in front of one of the port buildings. Some of the passengers remained on the shuttle and went straight back to the ship, no adventure in their souls!
We remained under cover for some minutes then as it seemed to ease we set off, most of the group walked but Julia and I grabbed a taxi. When we complained about the weather the driver told us that on Tuesdays as a part of the EU financial bale out of Greece the government had agreed to a day of German weather! He dropped us off next to a tunnel through the town wall and when we raced through it we were in the centre of town. The rain stopped in the next half hour.
As the weather cleared we decided to go up to the castle which dominates the town and harbour. As we approached we both remarked on the similarity to the smaller fortress at Terezin, clearly it was a similar design but it lacked the menace!
We were delighted to discover that the castle was open to the public and free on this particular day. We continued up as high as possible and eventually stood next to the flag pole at the highest point of the castle and the island. The view over the harbour and town were spectacular, it is easy to see why it was positioned there, it would hasve been impossible to sneak up on the defenders and the climb up to the castle would have left the attackers fully exposed to the defenders’ fire.
We noted that there seemed to be a huge number of cannon barrels scattered round the castle, some set up on wooden mounts as if to fire out to sea or into the town, some abandoned on the ground in heaps but most strangely were the gun barrels sunk into the ground to anchor other structures like huge tent pegs.
From the castle we walked down it the town, noting on the way that cars were parked everywhere including on pedestrian crossings!
We stopped in a small square and had a long cold beer as a reward for braving the rain and scaling the castle.
We then walked back to the harbour where we caught a shuttle back to the ship. On returning to our cabin we found some handmade chocolates on the bed with a compliments slip from the chef. We had afternoon tea with Richard and Margaret but they had received no such gift!
Although we decided to give the acrobats doing their “Planet Show” on deck 12 a miss that night we enjoyed watching them set up for the show, it was amazing how they maneuvered round the high structures rigging their ropes and swings.
We decided to make sure we were well positioned in the Marquee to get a good seat for the late night comedy so we were there when the entertainments staff did a “Speed Bingo” which is a license to print money. The punters pay £10 per bingo card and the total prize is only £200, shared between any simultaneous winners. They only have to sell 20 cards to break even and I estimated there were at least 200 people playing!
The comedian, Dave Buck, was very funny and we went to bed happy.