The Holiday

We got away, thanks to mother, on a very pleasant cruise of the Adriatic.

Flying out to Heraklion in Crete we joined up with Ocean Village Two or as we have renamed it (along with many others) Butlins-on-Sea with all the charm and sophistication associated.

To be fair, the accommodation was excellent with no bits falling off like some other ships we have been aboard. Sadly, the decor improvement was at the expense of choice of things to do and places to go on board. There is no cinema, no library and no nightclub. The choice of food was less than previous experiences but I cannot complain as there was an excellent selection of fish so I was in my element.

It took us a while to relax but after a day at sea we were in Dubrovnik and walking the city walls in intense heat. It was a delight to get back to the swimming pool and dive in to cool off. We then found out that rather unusually the jaccuzzi was cold. The HOT TUBS on BUTLINS-ON-SEA are COLD. This, we decided between us and other clientelle, was another cost cutting measure of which there seemed to be many.

The second port of call was Venice, a lovely city in north east Italy. My memory will be of my wife spotting the buildings at sea level and commenting "There is something in the sea". I knew instantly that we were fast approaching the city in the sea and fortunately we had to cruise through the main canal offering top quality views of the main island and surrounding islands. We also spotted the base of a new barrier that is being built to protect the city from the worst tides of the future.

Dubrovnik and Venice are both tourist traps full of trinket shops selling identical trinkets at identical prices. We were much happier when we stopped off on the Croatian island of Korcula. This proved to be a tender port, meaning that the cruise ship anchored offshore and we were delivered to the quayside by tender. We disembarked early and found a lovely cafe overlooking a bathing beach where we tried to local brew 'Lasko'. Like many I have tried in my life I will be very surprised if that is not in the English supermarkets before long.

From there we moved on to another tourist trap. Corfu town in Corfu was full of trinket shops selling identical trinkets at identical prices. Come on you tourist traps, at least make us buy things by varying your prices so we can think we are getting a bargain somewhere. Following a morning suffering the tourist shops we took a tour of the island during which I was educated. I have always loved the word Kumquat and I knew it was a fruit but I have never in my life seen such a small orange. Think Orange, Satsuma, Tangerine, shrink it down to the size of a grape and you have a Kumquat. We tried the spirit brewed from it and decided not to buy. The next stop on the tour was a beach resort where we indulged in an ice cream. The coach then wound up the mountain using those narrow roads where you can look out of the window and see no road but a steep drop. We also passed the worst traffic lights in the world. Fifty seconds of green are followed by seven and a half minuted of red. This allows a convoy to make its way through a very narrow lane the full length of a village. This is a four or five minute drive but our coach slowed as the windows came within centimetres of the walls on the corners. The view from the top was a bit special and no doubt my wife will put the photographs on facebook.

The last port of call was Zakinthos where I was able to purchase a pair of turtle bottle openers and a turtle kids bag for the next door neighbours. I still, however, have not seen a turtle, so if I go back for a third time I must take a trip to the turtle farms on the island. This time we sat outside the main church enjoying a quiet pint of the local brew (name not known) (too relaxed) when a firecracker disturbed the silence at precisely eleven o'clock. This was followed by the locals firing guns into the air and many other firecrackers obviously part of a celebration that I found unusual primarily because this was a wednesday.

We returned to Heraklion and flew back to Britain leaving early but once back in our own country life immediately became unpleasant again as we were met by the Gatwick Gestapo who treated us like criminals and made us wait two and a half hours for our baggage. Welcome home to the worst country in the entire world.

I may add more about Gatwick Airport later but it would contain too many expletives if I were to write it now.