KATAKOLON
Saturday 15 October
We awoke about 0700 to the noise of thunder and opened the drapes to look at the sea and saw lightning all about the ship. We were in heavy seas with thunderstorms all about. The ship captain came on the loud speaker to notify us that we were waiting outside the harbor to determine what we were going to do because the weather was terrible with the wind at over 45 knots. He indicated that we would wait outside the harbor to determine if the weather would pass by. While it did not leave the winds subsided and we entered the port and docked.
We did not plan to leave the ship since we saw Olympia before, with our friends from Athens, it continued to rain thus we just stayed on the ship. After we docked the Greeks notified Princess that they were going to strike. All the tours that had not left, had to be canceled. And the few people that went into town, were stuck, as they later closed, the gang way, leaving the passengers with no place to go. When they were able to get back, on board, the weather reversed itself again and the wind picked up to over 40 knots, leaving us in port with the engines running to keep the ship from breaking its lines. What a mess! We stayed until 3 hours past our original departure time to let the wind subside. It was all very interesting.
So it was off to Corfu!!!
This sailboat was from New Zeland,, and they came through this storm,,,,, wow
CORFU
Sunday 16 October
We awoke at 0600 to see our arrival at Corfu and to be ready for our 0715 tour. It was scheduled for the full day. We got off the ship and were greeted cloudy skies, but a very beautiful island. Our first stop was Elizabeth’s palace, built in the 19
th century. It was really beautiful and the gardens surrounding it were filled with plants from all over the world. It was used during the filming of the 007 movie, Live & Let Die.
After visiting we boarded our 50 passenger bus and went to the northern most area of the island taking a one lane road up the side of the mountain some 1750+ feet, this road made the Going to The Sun High Way look like a thoroughfare! And it was not one way… Cindy was really scared! We stopped along the way to visit a monastery midway up the mountainside, this was an Orthodox church, too, and they were having services as it was Sunday. We then re-boarded the bus, and finely reached the top. Where we stopped at a coffee house, best darn coffee and baklava we had in Greece.
After coffee we returned to the bus to proceed down the mountainside, not much better, the views were spectacular, but oh my god, it was scary, then they took us to a resort for lunch. The resort was very pretty and the lunch was enjoyable. We then left for the center of the main city square and had time for shopping. The city square was beautiful in all ways. We did go shopping and found some items we didn’t know we wanted. What fun! Then back to the ship and formal night with the Captains cocktail party. There are over 1000 return Princess passengers on this cruise, so they had to have 4 captains cocktail, parties. On board this cruise the most frequent passenger having over 1500 days aboard Princess ships. WOW, that is four years at sea! They said he had more days then the Captain.
What a day it was. As we finished our dinner our ship began to rock a bit, more then a bit really! Soon the captain told us we were experiencing 60 knot winds and of course the seas and ship were telling us that too. So off to bed for us!! We were both sound asleep within minutes.
After docking we took a tour of the lace shops on the island of Burano and the glass shops of Murano. The boat ride around Venice was spectacular and the islands were filled with shops. Not enough time to spend money andd see them all but it was fun to look! 
