The good ship “Westerdam”, one of the largest cruise ships in the world arrived at Heraklion’s long-harbour-walled port for the day, on 28 October. The day was also a major national holiday, the “Ochhi” day, commemorating that day in history when Greece said NO to Mussolini.

The Westerdam at 286 metres length, sporting up to 1800 passengers papmpered by a crew of over 800 puts the luxury cruise into port in Crete.

Many American and Dutch visitors took a sprint out to the most famous of archaeological sites – Knossos. A quick view of Heraklion’s bustle and perhaps a cafe or shopping visit was all that could be accomplished – the ship arrived in the morning and left the same day. Cruising on my friends!

Three other cruise ships, smaller but not without their own glamor, also displaced harbour volume.

You see October is cruise season for Crete. Much to the delight of taxi drivers and local guides and hopefully even more delightful for our visiting guests.

Lucky weather. Crete has had a good stretch of mild, actually somewhat warm October weather….more than two weeks of days reaching 26-28 degrees (this is a truly large island, so temperatures can vary quite a bit from North to south, east to west).

In case you feel like delving into a bit ot weather history and current temperatures in Crete – key in the following: http://www.cretetravel.com/weather

For a look at Heraklion and its central and peripheral delights see http://www.cretetravel.com/Heraklion

A warm November is predicted by the weather guys…yes please!

Specially created, drawn and designed to work well when viewing on the internet, CreteTravel.com and CreteHotelRooms.com have introduced a new map of the Greek island of Crete.

The map was created to show all salient features, main towns and villages on the island. It includes enough detail to be useful when planning a visit to Crete, while avoiding the “copy of a print map” syndrome that does not work too well when viewing on a computer screen.

The position of the romantic and special inns and small hotels that the full service www.cretehotelrooms.com (a unit of CreteTravel.com) have selected, are shown on the map to give an idea of the areas where a special and atmospheric place to stay is available.

Link to map:
http://www.crete-hotels-rooms.com/Reservations/Help/Crete_map.htm

Crete’s internal road system has always lacked good roads from the north to the south coast….there are already many such roads but they are mostly narrow and circuitous.

A new North to south road improvement is under way – which when completed (it is hoped this might be numbered in months rather than years as in previous projects…many of which remain uncompleted years after the first road-laying steps) will offer a much improved route from Heraklion to thre south coast .

It is advisable to avoid the area and route via Houdetsi for a few months (until early 2005 perhaps) – if practical (detours are in place – delays and increased journey times can be expected).

The end result will be a positive step forward, helping to make visits and stays on the south coast of Crete more practical and accessible.

Kenourgia Porta (also known as “Jesus Gate”) is at the start of Evans Street as it enters the city of Heraklion.
A part of the “gate” will house, later this year, an exhibition relevant to Nikos Katzanzakis during the period of 1883 until 1957.

The gate structure and interior – previously used for storage (!) – is being readied for this exhibition during October to hold onto this exhibit rather than it having to be returned to Athens.