Today we arrived in Koper, Slovenia, and what a fantastic day it's been!

It's the first place to make me jump up out of bed and head for the open deck just on the strength of what I was seeing on the TV in my cabin. The sun was rising on a beautiful scene; to the West you could see the snow-capped mountains of the Alps; everywhere else was dominated by the hills of Slovenia, and the small port town of Koper, bathed in the morning light.

Quite by chance, I met one of the other guest lecturers, Peter Roach who had also braved the cold air, since beautiful as it all was, it was absolutely perishing at 7:30am. As we talked, the matter of Tour Escorting duties, or apparent lack of, came up. It turns out that he hasn't had ANY duties given to him (I've only had the one so far, in Malaga), yet we both agreed that normally on a cruise, one would expect to be given a tour at pretty much every stop! The concensus of opinion is that fewer passengers are booking the tours, and more staff are looking for the escorting duties. Surprisingly, the photographers from the photo centre (they take all the pictures of passengers on formal nights and around the ship, and shoot an official Cruise Movie (to buy at a snip at £29!) have been given said duties on many of the tours, whcih is unusual because on previous cruises they've always just tagged along anyway, as an extra person on board. Even the Port Talk Speaker, at breakfast this morning, told me that she'd also only been given one tour so far, which is a huge departure from the norm.....

Hm....some things are definitely different this time around. There is the mysterious case of a change in important personnel at the last minute, of which I am not at liberty to talk about cos it'll get me into trouble, suffice to say; you didn't hear it from me!

Anyway; Peter and I arranged to go ashore together to look around Koper, which is an absolutely charming little town. Being a well-educated and knowledgeable person regarding this area, my companion was very useful to have along. We climbed the Clock Tower, visited the Museum and looked around several galleries. All very arty-stuff, and a pleasureable experience. In total contrast to the madness of Catania, Koper is quiet, small and veeeerrry relaxed; an absolute joy to visit!

The icing on the cake came about on my second visit into town of the day (shore leave doesn't end until 10:14pm tonight, which makes a nice change)... i discovered a square, where several, mostly young, people were sitting around on benches hammering away at laptops.... I found FREE WI-FI INTERNET!!!! Woo Hooooooooooo!!!!!

Needless to say, I've been able to upload a couple of photos (check back on Catania), and post today's entry completely free of charge..... aaaaaaaaaah - Heaven!!!!!

::::::::::::::::::::::ADDITIONAL:::::::::::::::::::::::

I've just returned to the ship to find a slip of paper pushed under my cabin door.... I have a tour tomorrow, in Venice - Woo Hoooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

There are no comments to this entry.