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.

Katakolon, Greece

The gentle rumble of our giant behemoth as it idles in port keeping all the comforts available and functioning is almost soothing as I try to nap. It's been a nice morning of exploring in the little port town of Katakolo and beyond. 

Precruise research revealed that there was a hop on hop off bus available right at the dock and when we checked after breakfast, we could see it sitting right there as promised. This port is the door to Olympia where you can visit old ruins and see where the Olympics were first held back in 776BC. We'd been there before and felt that we didn't want to pay for an excursion to see the same thing. The HOHO bus was only 10 Euros each for a ride that would last an hour and a half round trip into the city of Pyrgos.

The audio on the bus was a little hard to figure out to find the English channel and at one point it cut out and returned to the Spanish channel. I decided I just wanted to enjoy the fresh air and see the countryside without all the explanation and music. I pulled my earphones out and enjoyed the silence, well except for the whistling on occasion that came from Bob as he enjoyed the music.

Farmland passed by interspersed with small homes and a little shop now and then. In the distance, hazy blue mountains filled the horizon. It was the setting for a a romantic movie, maybe a Hallmark, and then we reached the city.

City of Pyrgos

For a moment I thought we were back in Rome. Cars were parked sometimes three deep. Horns blared impatiently or to warn that the vehicle was not stopping as motorcycles wove in and out of traffic and side streets. At one point, there were lots of Greek words exchanged as a parked car, motor idling until the driver returned from his purchase in a shop  to finally move the car. I thought about how that would work in the States. Either the car would be stolen or road rage would end badly. Here, there was no place to run off with the car since traffic was blocked mostly or moving very slowly and words seemed to be the worst of the road rage.

Streets were difficult to discern. I saw a few names on buildings which I thought might correspond but I couldn't match that with the map of the area we'd been given. At the stop where there was to be a pedestrian area, it was impossible to tell where it was and so when Bob said let's get off, I said no way. Instead I said I would rather walk through the little town of Katakolo when we got back. He relented.

Katakolon

On our way back, I saw that a lot of the area had groves of olive trees. They are very pretty trees with small leaves. I couldn't tell if they had olives on them. Between the distance and the speed of the bus it wasn't discernable. We did see some trees along the street in town though that had limes on them.

Back in Katakolo, we excited the bus at the park near the entrance to the little town's main street. There's a strange looking statue of a seagull there which I think is just photo op for visitors. It has a wing extended to appear to put an "arm" around you as someone snaps the photo.

The shops were very nice and even tempting. The clothing was not the usual cheap type of souvenir stuff. That's not to say there wasn't plenty of that but there was also some nice jewelry to look at as well. We strolled the main street in the direction of the dock and the ship and found a small convenient store to buy a large bottle of water. Holland America Cruises has finally relented and allows you to bring water onboard again. What is available other than the tap water on the ship is cans of water. Maybe it's just me, but I think the canned water tastes weird. The whole thing was a campaign for the environment but I think it fell flat.

As I write this, we are spending the afternoon leisurely. The temps have risen a bit and the sun is hot but there's a gentle breeze now and then. We'll enjoy a walk around the Promenade later and dinner (and the recorded or delayed Browns game) shortly after we leave the port. Since the internet at sea is still a bit sketchy, I want to post this while we are still in port. Looking forward to the comedian tonight at the theater. I understand from seeing comments on Facebook that we might not enjoy the football game so much.

On to our next port, Nafplion, in the morning.