Katakolon, Greece and Reflections of our Cruise

The smell of freshly crushed grapes hung in the air as we explored the winery where the Fun Train of Katakolon had brought us. Old buildings covered in vines, I felt like I was in the middle of a Hallmark movie. 

The hop off hop on train was very nice with only two stops the winery and a beach. It was 8 euros each but well worth it.

The train sat at the park in the middle of town and we boarded it for the ride up the hillside and through the countryside. From paved roads, we continued on several flat semi-graveled roads through orchards of olive trees and several vineyards. 

We must have been the first to arrive as there was no one to greet us inside where the wine store and tasting was. We walked around exploring the outside of buildings and watching a bit as a worker cleaned out one of the modern grape presses. That must have been where the smell of crushed grapes came from.

Peeking in a door, we watched as a lady was spooning melted wax on top of bottles and sealing them with a stamp.

Inside the winery, there was a plethora of antiques. A steam engine that drove some pulleys that we think might have driven a wine press fascinated Bob. He also found some sort of old circuitry board as well. 

Finally someone came and opened two bottles of wine, a red and a white. If you came on the Fun Train, the tasting was free. We sat in a room surrounded by more antiques and a large old picture of what I assumed was a couple of generations of the family that owned the vineyards.

Forty minutes after being left off at the winery, the train was back with more passengers and picking up those who were ready to move on. 

The next stop was not far and was a beach and a restaurant/bar that looked out on a beautiful view of the ocean. Several people got off to have lunch or use the beach.

We stayed on and arrived at the ship just after noon. We had already had a glimpse of the Christina O yacht that was docked opposite our ship. It looked like they were doing some swapping out of furniture or at least a lot of cleaning as well as stocking up on supplies. The yacht once belonged to Aristotle Onassis and is now available for chartering--if you can afford it.

Bob looked it up online. It carries 34 guests, has a swimming pool with a mosaic bottom that can be raised or lowered. Lots of other amenities as you can imagine including a wooden pleasure boat attached to one side of it.

This was our last port before sailing into Athens and flying home. It was a wonderful four weeks despite the horrible ending to our time that was to be spent in Israel. We only had one day of weather that drenched us in Mykonos and the heat in Egypt was not nearly as bad as we anticipated. 

It's been quite a year of travel. We've spent about eleven or twelve weeks on the road over the last almost eleven months. Time to settle in at home for a bit before we hit the road again. The HAL navigator app opening page says, "To travel is to live." A quote by Hans Christian Anderson. Yes.