Olympia to Monterosso

October 15-20

So due to Helen's sore leg, I went on the bus tour to Olympia solo.

The ride there took about half an hour through interesting countryside, depositing us at the site about 11:30am. I was very glad Helen had let it go, as the walk from the bus to the ticket booth would already have been more walking than she would have been up for.

The archeological site was more-or-less a square one kilometre across. It was packed with tour groups. As my trip left me on my own to wander, I circled the entire site, snapping heaps of photos. The signage was almost all in Greek, and therefore unreadable to me.

After the site, I wandered through the museum, again photographing like a madman.

With time left, I walked to town, bought a tshirt, and sat in a cafe for a much-needed coffee. I like the European style of always bringing a glass of water with the coffee. On the way back to the bus area, I found a super cute owl statue for Helen. It's about the size of an aspirin bottle, so maybe calling it a statue is a bit grandiose.

Half an hour later, I was on foot headed up the gangway to our ship. Helen had been mostly resting while I was gone, and shooed me off to get some late lunch, which I did.

Then we scrolled through the pictures so she could almost do the tour. Her rest day seems to have helped, and her hobbling was much smoother. Slow, but easier on her. The next day was at sea, and continued restful for the wound.

On any typical day on board, I get up early, at maybe 6 or 6:30am. I get dressed, and slip out so that Helen can sleep longer. Then it's a search for coffee and someplace nice to sit. I return to the room to get her for breakfast at an appropriate time. We eat lunch either in the Windjammer buffet, or in the dining room. Dinner is at 6pm in the dining room, at the table we share with five either guests. After dinner, we catch the show and usually dance.

Having a cruise smack dab in the middle of our time in Europe was a wonderful vacation within a holiday (or is it a holiday within a vacation?). Everywhere else there have been hotels and sights to find, and food, and transportation networks to decode and learn. It is all great, but stress is involved. On the ship there is far less of all that. After the ship we had couple of weeks of on-our-own travel to go, but with freshly recharged batteries.

Following the ship time, we had three more nights in Venice, staying at our same Murano hotel. We found more areas with less tourists, and also visited the Doge's palace.

Helen got a little misty over the thought of our leaving. We had a week there altogether from our two stays, and that seems to be the length of time it takes for her to attach to a place.

The train trip out only had one connection, about halfway through the journey, at Milano. Our destination was Monterosso in the Cinque Terra region. We got out train tickets right after the cruise; three days early. I don't think locals ever do that. They get their tickets on the way to the train. We did get window seats, perhaps by booking early, so that was some kind of reward.

The downside of this was the heavy blast of air conditioning coming out of vents below the windows.

Milano is where we changed trains, peed, and grabbed snacks. It is the biggest city of our trip, but all we saw was the massive train station.

The second train ran us down the coast to our next home in Monterosso.