Six years ago this week (on 29 January 2001) http://www.CreteTravel.com the Guide to Crete went live on the internet.

I remember working on it non-stop the last few days before the launch – with the culmination of a 24 hour stint the day before… to launch at 9 am on the morning of the 29th.
What satisfaction and joy! To share with you all the discoveries, the tastes and thrills of Crete.
A sunny January day it was, so after catching up with some sleep, grilled fish at a beachfront taverna it had to be (it never tasted better) !

We included in the features a free “Ask a Question” service.
This gave us tremendous opportunity to find out what information visitors to Crete were looking for and “hone” our skills of providing helpful, informative, concise replies – and gleaning/understanding what people were really after in their questions.
We have answered since over 2500 questions – the mind races to think of it.

The praise we received from the visitors to our site gave us renewed energy to continue offering even more advice and help – and the need to take it to the next level:
Helping them practically, by providing them with reservation services for the small hotels that we had uncovered for them.

In the same year we launched http://www.Crete-Hotels-Rooms.com, receiving great thanks and feedback from our guests who had come from all areas of the world.
Being able to offer hotels we had “discovered” and visited, photographed and described with our own freshly-inspired words – was a reward in itself.

All this was followed by steady growth and our absolute adherence to honesty in describing the hotels we had found – and truth, accuracy and clarity in talking with our guests and appraising how best to satisfy their travel dreams and wishes.

“Many hotels later”, with the same philosophy, we launched http://www.SuperbGreece.com which will soon celebrate its own second anniversary, to offer small beautiful hotels and inns we discover one by one in other magical areas of Greece.

The adventure for us continues.

The pleasure for our guests – we will make sure – only increases.

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.

The closing ceremony and the completion of 15 days of the Athens 2004 Olympics.

Thc closing ceremony has been well received in Greece and with worldwide audiences. Having featured Greek classical, contemporary and modern music and songs…some familiar to international ears, some a new experience of the variety of the Greek music scene.

Some references and comment on the final big show, the closing ceremony and the happy result of a games staged against all the odds:
The BBC says:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/sport2/hi/olympics_2004/3607622.stm
CNN summarizes:
http://www.cnn.com/si/2004/olympics/2004/08/29/bc.oly.closingceremony.ap/index.html?cnn=yes
and Apologizes:
http://www.cnn.com/si/2004/olympics/2004/writers/08/29/reilly.letter/index.html?cnn=yes

To see the much-renewed and resplendent city of the 2004 games:
http://www.cretetravel.com/Athens

Let the Olympic spirit play on.