June 21

Woke up exhausted. Had a cup of coffee and my breakfast in the room, looked out the balcony and thought “whatever”. Went back to sleep until about 10:30 a.m. to find Al had already walked around a bit and gotten the lay of the land. He told me to go ahead and just rest but then he said something about maybe finding a beach and I rallied. I asked for ten minutes and it took me five and we were on our way!

We took the shuttle bus to the town of Chania, walked through the regular town and then all the obligatory touristy shops and restaurants until we got to the old city walls, one Byzantine and then for good measure another layer was built by the Venetians who conquered them. (Glad you can keep all this straight, because I sure can’t).

Guess what? My radar found me inside a fabric shop! Imagine that! Snagged myself about a yard of cotton fabric. There was very little quilt type cotton, but I like the Greekish pattern I bought and it will serve me well in a quilt someday.

Also stopped to get a wide brimmed hat for our hike in Korcula.

We kept walking along the wall and I searched up “beaches”. Some of them I knew about because between coffee and my early morning back to bed I had checked out ways to get there. Not impossible but – the nap….

Second search revealed a little swimming area where the locals go. There it was, people swimming. Turns out it was just some cruise folks like us, one a nurse from Puerto Rico who works on the ship (now THAT’S a gig – she works for a traveling nurse company and works on ships!). Like me she almost didn’t get off the ship but before it was over she had bought herself a bikini and was in the water.

That swim was the best ever. The water is crystal clear. It was rocky and somewhat treacherous to get in but once you realized you just needed to sit down and move out that way – well, we sat for a good 45 minutes. Beyond refreshing and good conversation with our nurse. It was hard to get out for sure. We didn’t have towels and my swimsuit kept me cool for the rest of our walk.

We ended up at cafe Veros, one of the many cafe’s lining the water. Ordered myself a virgin Pina colada, Al had a local beer and we shared a greek pizza. It was a sublime day without having to learn anything.

The lesson? Never “almost not get off the ship”.