Soon the bridge being built – an overpass crossing Crete’s north coast “New National Road” – will allow the removal of the only traffic signals (traffic lights) in the Heraklion area of the National Road. Its span is standing as if an island of road in the air, ready for its gradual completion.

This will eliminate a traffic bottleneck at the exit off the main road towards the town centre, Knossos and local suburbs.

Two traffic signals remain – either side of Agios Nikolaos – on this main travel artery.

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Speed cameras have been installed from Kissamos to Sitia on the new National Road (the main road along Crete’s north coast) . There are warning signs, two successive signs, before each camera.
The cameras do not yet appear to have been activated. When they will be, we know not – we watch with some attention and dismay!
It is of course possible that in liberty-loving Crete these ominous grey metal boxes will not be brought to function, ever. We will see whether another restriction on personal choice and responsibility is allowed to smother freedom.

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It is a beautiful, clear and sharp, bright sunny morning across most of Crete this November 24 day.

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Greetings from Greece.

Passing on some good advice for USA travelers during Hurricane disruptions:

http://www.tripso.com/today/hurricane-travel-info-resources/

http://www.tripso.com/today/flying-with-gustav-5-things-you-need-to-know-now/

http://www.tripso.com/today/the-perfect-storms-gustav-hanna-foil-labor-day-travel-plans/

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.

They are models, depictions, sculptures, and fun images.
The “Cow Parade” comes to Athens. A moving feast of an “art” event, first created by Walter Knapp in Zurich. Now after several cities have been exposed to sponsored sculptures, figures and representations of….cows, Athens is not be left out.

From May 8 major squares, the airport and some metro stations will cow-down to cows and this whimsical festival will have everyone in a very dairy mood….

On the Shipping News Front: Shipping owners have finally had enough. Understandably so. Even though we hate strikes. This time shipping companies are to keep their ships tied at port on May 16 in protest at the slow liberalization, to allow free competition on ferry routes within and to/from Greece.

The criticism of slowness and a lack of liberalization (encouragement of free enterprise) can be levelled fairly and squarely at all areas of Greek government, yes – even the current supposedly/allegedly enterprise-friendly government.

We can only hope that this government is slowly (but clearly too slowly) extricating itself from the outdated practices of its discredited predecessors.

Meanwhile laugh at the cows while the ships are in port.

One thing that could, just might be, interesting about travel and about hearing what is going on in another part of the world, is that small things can sound a little bit interesting.

After more years than anyone can remember harvesting olives, the road from Souda to the Chania airport turn has been resurfaced.

How boring! Well not so. Not for the many who have visited or tried to leave Crete after a vacation, who will remember the off-road skills that were needed to stay On the road to or from the airport. The massive bumps and cracked craters seemed like a miniature map of the island’s very mountains. How all those rented cars stayed bolted together after this massive auto-vibro-massage of a road, is hard to understand.

So we toast and welcome the new two lane blacktop, the new smooth velvet-surfaced road and hope that other signs sane signs of progress will appear and will show a new consciousness about welcoming visitors to the fabled island.

At last getting to and from Chania’s airport is a reality that no longer bears comment, and a tired bumpy and disgraceful “myth” is buried forever. Buried under the new surface, the surface of the future!

Mooted new name for Olympic Airways is ” Pantheon Airways ” – well there have been many off-beat airline names….

Olympic Airways name and logo (brand) would be auctioned off

All this subject to final negotiations, discussions, wrangling and big bad EU approval !

The story of privatising Greece’s flag carrier has been fraught with delays. We hope this will be the last stage of the process to bring a new baby and a healthy adult into the airways linking Greece, its islands and the world.

Agios Nikolaos is on a beautification binge…smartening the main Eleftherios Venizelos square and approaching roads. Unsightly cables have been committed to below-ground, where they really do belong!

Nykterida – the long-famed restaurant where I would love to be able to say “my great friend and colleague Sir Winston Churchill” (alas we did Not meet ! ) , apparently dined and enjoyed a cigar as usual – still sits aloft Souda bay on the piddly and insufficient road from Chania to the airport.
The restaurant is poised above the water, offering welcome views night and day.

Nykterida’s oven cooked lamb with many supporting ingredients, a rewardingly tasty eggplant dish with hints of bacon, wonderful cold salads, pork rolled with cheese and vegetables, smoked pork, all were healthy, wholesome pleasure. Lubricated with a 2000 Nemea from the boys at Skouras which scores an 8.5 out of ten on my red wines list (rich, without tannin dryness, silky without over suddsiness, fruity without bringing one fruit too much to mind and totally pleasing to mouth and palate) .
Also welcome on a chilly night was that the restaurant had heard of heating and was warm and cosy. Though they need to add this comfort level, I am told, to the ladies toilets which were all about refrigeration !
A simple change that would bring many more welcome visitors and guests to Crete – will be unilateral warmth – cafes and restaurant owners take note – in winter, indoors!

From our view of the snow-coated White Mountains of Crete, to you all over the world with warm wishes and greetings.

A news summary buzz:

New power station in Crete at Atherinolakos gradually delivers…power pylons in place though many still looking for cables : it’s a strange sight to see pylons undressed, without their cables. The power station will provide some of the power for all of the island, is on the south coast between Xerokambos and Goudouras (the journey between the two places is most scenic and dramatic).

Aparently Greece is one of the most popular destinations for US travellers – glad to hear it (Conde Nast Traveler).

Germanwings will add weekly flights to Heraklion from Germany next year during the “season” starting on 6 March 2006…a great connection for travel to and from Germany and onward (or inward) from other European centers ( see http://www.germanwings.com )

Updated bus Schedules for Crete now ready to view and use for your next trip!

14-16 October showed that wonderful warm sunny weather on the south coast of Crete still abounds. The south coast is a pretty good bet for sunny heart-warming weather in October and on many days throughout the winter. North coast Crete gets more of a winter sampling however (some magic micro-climate areas like Mochlos seem milder than the norm and Sitia is a good mild Christmas stop).

No more traffic signals on the main north coast road in Crete (the New National Road) at Rethymno.
The many months of work on the underpass for the main road at Rethymno have produced the goods and the road is now open.
You can now drive from Kissamos, past Chania and Rethymno without traffic signals until the first post of Red/amber/Green at Heraklion’s junction for the centre of the city (the next one being at the beginning of Agios Nikolaos).

In Heraklion: The new coast sea-front road is now open as far as the olympic stadium.
The significant aesthetic imporvements to Heraklion continue, with a planned change to the concrete-jungle horror of Eleftherias Venizelos square in the centre, becoming softer, greener and to have the addition of many trees….transforming the area into a worthy place to be for a while!

Some change is good.