Friday, September 23rd - Monemvasia, Greece
When we awoke today we were in the harbor of our third Greek island experience, Monemvasia. I hate to admit it, but I'd never heard of Monemvasia before. When we looked at the shore excursion for this island, it was six hours in length and included two hours of walking on uneven surfaces -- we opted out. Felt a little guilty but decided to spend the day aboard vegging on the pool deck. Well, I had a LOT of catching up to do on the blog so that took a couple of hours.
The ship was quite crowded and, I suspect that after the walking on Mykonos, Ephesus and Santorini, a LOT of the guests were feeling walked-out.
Monemvasia is really a peninsula joined to the Greek mainland by a short causeway. Many of the medieval buildings have been restored and converted to hotels.
While spending the day on the ship, we were introduced to the technique by which modern ships have eschewed anchoring in ports like this one. Like Santorini and Mykonos, there is no quay/dock big enough for cruise ships -- so they "anchor" out in the harbor and use tenders to ferry passengers back and forth. But they don't use real anchors to do that. Instead, the ship has bow and stern thrusters. The bridge sets the GPS coordinates assigned by the harbormaster and the ship's electronics, through the thrusters (and if very windy, the ships engines), keep the ship at the proper heading inside a 100 meter circle automatically; very, very cool.
Much of the day was spent reading, eating, drinking (always drinking) and people-watching.
We do have a celebrity on board; Chewbacca's father is here.
There were also a number of bikini-clad ladies, some young, some not so young but all wore them proudly. In particular, the young lady on the right who appears topless, sadly is not. Every time she turned over (and believe me, I watched closely) she managed to tie her top securely before flipping over face up.  We think these two are in the dance crew.
Yes, there were some/many who shouldn't have worn one at all. And there was this young lady who was quite proud of her purchased upper unit:
Again tonight we decided to dine at a two-top and the food and service were excellent. After dinner we went to the Constellation Theater to see Constantine, a self-proclaimed piano showman. And showman he was; he's Russian and put on a terrific show.
And so to bed. Tomorrow we should wake up in Zakynthos where we will be on yet another six-hour tour; more to come.
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