Corfu

Today we docked in Corfu Town. I came to Corfu about 40 years ago, but spent the entire  time  either on the beach or in bars and I hadn't taken any notice of any of the history.  

Our excursion began with a bus ride up to a hill where we could get a good panoramic  view of a local beauty spot called Mouse Island.   The weather was quite cloudy early in the morning  and there were even a few spots of rain. 

Then it was on to Mon Repos Palace. The British had a Protectorate over Corfu  and several other Ionian islands for roughly 50 years from the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815.   The Greek royal family was closely linked to Queen Victoria and their  new King, George I was a committed Anglophile,  which paved the way for the Treaty of London  in 1864 in which the Ionian islands became part of Greece with Britain retaining use of the port of Corfu.  During the Protectorate, the British  high commissioner built this home  for his Corfiot wife, Nina.  It was subsequently used by the Greek royal family as a summer residence after the  Treaty of London and today's  fascinating  fact is that Prince Philip,  the Duke of Edinburgh was born in one of the bedrooms upstairs.    Today the Palace is a museum, with the ground floor being decorated  as it would  have looked when Nina  lived here and the upper floor laid out to display ancient  Greek artifacts that have been  found in the grounds of the estate. 

By the time we got out of the Palace the weather had changed and it was sunny and hotter than it had been at any point in the trip so far.  We had a quick stop at a place where they produced the local kumquat liqueur and sampled that and some other kumquat flavoured sweets.  Then it was on to Corfu Town for a walking tour where we saw the old Venetian fort.  Like many other places we've visited on this  cruise,  Corfu was also once part of the Venetian empire.

Although we had some free time in town after the tour,  it was too hot to hang  around.  We took the shuttle back to the ship and had lunch at the pool grill before spending the rest of the afternoon in the pool/hot tub or lounging around on the pool deck.   

We've  been  finding ourselves getting  more and more exhausted after each day's  excursions and the very hot weather isn't  helping.  Thank goodness tomorrow  is a day at sea.