It is that time when many turn the lights down low in their factories, offices and dens.
It is that time to remember the brave and bold beneficial actions you have taken during the year.
It is that time to adopt the resolve and muster the determination to do greater things in the year about to be offered us as a new canvas on which to achieve more and move forwards.

We wish you the strength to act from honesty and logic, to add your words asserting the rights every man and woman have to freedom and an expansive, growing experience of life.

Let us not mince our words and let us in the free world or those who know that life is best lived trying, creating, attempting, inventing, improving in every way we can – improve the world for ourselves and therefore for others everywhere.

Gain learning, knowledge, clarity, logic and humor.

Here is a toast – wishing you strides forward in whatever productive and better direction you know you want to go.

Here’s to freedom and the bold and daring progress and triumphs of mankind.

Best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate. Whether it is with a Turkey for dinner, a family group or a bunch of good friends or welcome acquaintances – enjoy it and value all that is honest, cheerful and positive.

Do take time to discuss ideas than can improve your lives and the lives of others in a truly productive viable way – the ways that work.

We lost two major figures who had firm beliefs in the freedoms that should be accorded to not only individuals, but self-decided-upon groups such as families, fine friends and chosen associates – during the last month. Both Milton Friedman (Turkey for Thanksgiving – USA) and Lord Harris (Turkey for Christmas – UK) championed one of the most important bases for freedom, economics. The basis upon which most long-lasting realities and realistic progress must start from or embrace. Many thanks to both of them for their enormous and lasting contributions to the world and the hundreds of millions of lives improved, directly or indirectly, by their works.

We hope that those who travel or stay home this thanksgiving will think of all those sitting down to a meal or standing to offer a toast on this special day, in other lands than the one the world – willingly or unwillingly – relied upon quite heavily to light and bear the torch for a vital aspect of life upon this plant. Freedom to choose.

Be honest and seek the truth in all things, live, learn and prosper – Happy thanksgiving.

So the monsters won.

Eurovision was an opportunity to see some splendid visual stimulation, in the form of Greece. Scenes of markets, villages, hotels ( some we identified ! ), people, beaches, monuments, archaeological sites, houses, ancient pathways, fantastic food and well….overall, a visual feast. These provided the interval, the pause that refreshes, between vastly contrasting music styles (well style might not always be the word) but well, ballads to bawdy, gaudy monster rock to the funny “vote for us song” – the latter probably should have won for its total lack of disguise, all marketing and no song!

So many areas of Greece are still unexplored – areas where tourism is a novelty, visitors a strange a wonderful event taking place. For example Kavala, with so much to see nearby from Thasos island to the massive bird and wetland sanctuary, the magnificent bends and twists of the Nestos river and so many ( yes many ) more delights in store.

Also consider the cosmopolitan, lively, interesting and friendly northern anchor of the country, Thessaloniki.

And the beat goes on !

The lamb, still hot and straight off the hand-cranked spit, cooked by the heat and glowing embers of charcoal, tasted…like lamb should !

It is traditional and it is done. A few people still fast in the 40 days leading up to Easter. For most of those who do this, it is an easy “fast” that allows the eating of shrimp and fish and many other foods that are both healthy and much-desired by those living in many parts of the world outside Greece. Then presto! Lamb is being roasted outdoors everywhere you go and everyone wants to enjoy the – for some – highlight of Easter, which in effect ends the fast, bite into that !

Here in Crete, as the water at sea’s edge gave emeralds a run for their money in the colour stakes, the eggplant salad, the Horiatiki salad with its welcome chunk of Feta cheese, the warm sun challenged by a cooling breeze, all allowed for that taverna-with-a-view to deliver “the experience”. The experience is a blend of food, aromas, people, views, laughter, bright conversation and the spending of time, as chosen, for moments which become the building blocks of cherished memories.

Vegetarians do not despair ! Greece is a country with salads. The salad lives beyond your fresh-produce inspired dreams….and if fried in olive oil, the occasional fired zucchini, mushrooms and vegetables just waiting to be eaten bolster the platter even without relying on fish or meat or poultry.

Happy spring – enjoy the wildflowers – and let the sound of the waves and the fresh-started birds chatter and sing.

In northern Europe and many other delightful points upon the globe, this weekend is Easter.

A chance to relax, visit family, meet your lover, visit a loved one, go to a church (even enter and say a few words) – whatever Easter is to you, yes it has become a holiday for all, enjoy it or be rewarded by it.

Here in Greece we are waiting for next weekend when Orthodox Easter weekend reaches us.

You will search for hidden eggs perhaps. We will go after the far more protein-laden real eggs by knocking them together and seeing who wins by breaking the other person’s red-tinted hard boiled specimen.

Hope the sun is shining where you are in spirit and also as a bonus, with luck, in meteorological fact.

Today – Saturday the 15th day of April 2006 is sunny here in Crete and gently warm, with high temperatures reaching between 19 and 23 degrees. The visitor season has started. Closed cafes, invisible under their winter covers, have sprung back to life…tables are being placed on pavements, roadsides, terraces and sea-edge positions with optimism and delight.

Crete to Santorini ( from Heraklion to Thira ( Santorini ) ) fast ferry, Catamaran, service by Hellenic Seaways will start this year on 14 April 2006.

Actual days and times are Yet To Be Confirmed !

( LAST YEAR the sailings were daily Excluding Wednesdays and departure from Heraklion was 9:15 in the morning, from Santorini departure was at 5:00 PM in the afternoon )

CreteTravel.com celebrates 5 years of stunning the world and informing discerning travelers who want to know the real deal, the plain truth and the useful stuff about Crete.

On January 29 in 2001 at around 11.00 in the morning local time the website went live on the internet and has spawned a story which is now part of internet history.

As the information was consumed – appreciated by many for its frank style, user-friendly, easy-navigation, lack of hidden agenda, shear, informative and appropriate – requests started arriving for help with choosing just the right place to stay, that special inn, that romantic suite, that delightfully positioned villa.
We listened, we responded and later that year Crete-Hotels-Rooms.com was launched. Offering more true (accurate) photographs of each hand-picked hotel or villa, brutally honest descriptions, full price information, no mysteries, no tricks – just the plain truth and a whole lot of expert personal service, one-to-one advice and a driving desire to offer the best websites about anywhere in the world….but about Crete; the website and travel service has grown every year since and….yes, given birth to another, namely SuperbGreece.com which step-by-step is covering other chosen parts of Greece with selected, hand-picked hotels and inns with that extra charm, the delight a true and discerning traveler wishes for. Again personal service – all questions answered, any advice given, knowledgeable suggestions made – is provided to guest coming from all of Europe, USA, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, UAE, South Africa, Israel, Canada, Argentina, Hong Kong, India, and most countries (we are getting there too ! ) of the world.

Happy Anniversary.
There is so much more to come.

Happy New year. During January a select few new hotels and fine houses will be added to the CreteHotelRooms.com website and the SuperbGreece.com website , ready for your New Year visit.
Had you stayed for Christmas there was high quality white snow in the mountains and those on the Lassithi Plateau had a white Christmas.

The owners of CreteTravel.com and CreteHotelRooms/SuperbGreece had the best-tasting Christmas turkey in the world….as always! A visit just before Christmas to Thessaloniki was rewarding with the most hospitable shopkeepers, cafe and restaurant owners ready to show the world some of the more dazzling and most helpful pre-christmas spirit we have seen. Shopkeepers in Crete take note and learn for next year!

We aim to please. And we look forward to pleasing many more visitors to Greece this year than ever before….providing that “wow” factor, the great experience of having superb and expert help to choose that warm and perfect place to stay.

Whether you will tether the wagon or land in other ways in Greece or Crete this year or not, do consider every opportunity to offer good old fashioned honesty and live with true integrity, rationally and with sane reason and wisdom…and have fun on this faulty yet eminently enjoyable planet of ours!

A happy and rewarding new year to us all.

British Airways will increase the frequency of flights from Gatwick (UK) to Heraklion (Crete, Greece) for 2006.

The service will resume (after its winter close) on 28 March 2006 until 27 October 2006.
There will be four flights a week on these days > Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday.

We expect this will be most successful – we have had good reports from visitors to Crete who have enjoyed the GB Airways flights during this year.

The timetables for 2006 Will be shown on the flights to Crete resource> http://www.cretetravel.com/flights