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Posted: 18th July 2005 (covering Feb - July 2005)

Well, it's not quite been the length of time that I left between the previous two newsletters, but around six months means that this one is still some time overdue and has a lot of ground to cover. Anyway as the season is now well under way I'll try and cover some of the happenings from February through July of this year.

Early February - Late winter and early Spring, as anyone who lives on Crete knows, can be far from the tropical idyll that many of our friends back in northern Europe would believe we enjoy and the cold weather was with the island again this year. I'd spent January in the UK and being back in Crete saw me wrapped in multiple layers even around the apartment for the early part of February. The heating was on almost permanently and trips outside were made as brief as possible.

Mid-Late February 2005 saw all kinds of conditions from the bitter cold weather that affected the whole of Greece to the bright Spring mornings of the weekend of 19th-20th. Earlier in the month, however, Crete was certainly not lucky enough to avoid the chill. This picture, taken on the 14th shows the water level at an extreme low, exposing the bed of the bay in parts where normally the water would be over half a metre deep. Compared to this picture, though, of the snowfall exactly twelve months beforehand and even the earlier part of this month seemed balmy by comparison! I also managed to get up to the football ground on the 20th February to see Elounda beat Platanias 2-1 and there are a couple of short .ASF clips online in the 'Video' section; an excellent way to spend a Sunday afternoon and Mirabello serves as a stunning backdrop.

25th March 2005 - Parades throughout Greece on the 25th March marked Independence Day, a celebration of the beginning, in 1821, of the uprising against almost four centuries of Ottoman rule. Bishop Germanos of Patras had raised the Greek flag at the Agia Lavras monastery. Over the years the actual date has become inextricably linked with the bishop's message on the 25th March, at the Feast of the Anunciaton, where a national rebirth was extolled. Now religion, history and cultural identity are bound together on the same day. In Elounda the schoolchildren's parade began as always at the church and from there proceeded to the square for the roll of honour, regrouping at the top of the road and marching back down again, as parents, residents and tourists filled the street to watch and applaud the youngest generation's achivements. Click here and here for the two pictures that appeared on the Elounda77 frontpage.

Protestant and Catholic Easter Sunday (27th March) - Although it was obvious that there was a demand by many to get out to Crete for the Easter school holidays the huge gap this year between the Protestant and Orthodox Easters meant that those wanting to get to the island from the UK were faced with independent travel and accommodation options only as the tour operators left their charters (and the season) for another month.

Greek Orthodox Easter Weekend fell on 29th April to 1st May this year. The Video section has links to a couple of short (.ASF) videos of the church and procession on Good Friday and there is an introduction to Greek Easter customs at makeITcrete here

As said, the season started late this year and it was well after both Protestant and Orthodox Easters that the flights began to arrive in any great numbers. The mixture of people that have hit Elounda have covered all ages including families, young and retired couples plus young groups aswell. Different months see different people, often according to factors such as the heat or the timing of school holidays.

Where I've been hanging out. (Obviously everyone has their own favourites / places where their friends tend to hang out and these are not meant as recommendations or to the detriment of any of the others that aren't mentioned this time around. You know Elounda - you will have fun anywhere.) Some long and very enjoyable nights out that I've enjoyed over the summer have included favourite places such as All In One, Symbol, Alyggos, FRienDS, Bar74, Bar Bee and plenty more besides plus I've also been venturing (read pressganged!) further afield a lot more than in previous years including some great nights out in the Greek bars of Hersonissos, Ierapetra and Ag Nik. Off the top of my head some A1 meals that I remember from the last few months in Elounda have included Leonidas and Megaro plus the ones that I tend to haunt on a regular basis such as Paradosiako. I've also begun to frequent Plaka quite a bit in my free time, enjoying the relaxing atmosphere down there as a contrast to the sometimes hectic atmosphere of Elounda. The Pine Tree has been having Greek music on a Wednesday night out in the garden at the back and is a very pleasant way to relax over an evening coffee.

Hope everyone is having a great year. Best wishes to all and special hellos to Ann and Chris, Magda, Paul and Mary, The Newcastle crowd and everyone else who helps to make the summer evenings such fun.

M :))

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New or changed in the Elounda area for 2005

A new Internet Cafe, simply called 'Online Internet Cafe' has opened up opposite the entrance to the Aristea hotel (just as you enter the centre). It has plenty of terminals, a central location and superb interior decor.

A new sandwich shop 'Fresco' has opened up opposite the tourist information

A branch of the local DVD hire and Internet Access business called 'Surf DVD / Surf Click 'n' Play' has opened up opposite 'Select'

'Bar Bee' has now got resident DJ Sam playing 5 nights a week, plus some rather relaxing sofas to chill out on during the evening hours. Big 'Desperate Dan' style breakfasts during the morning and ever popular barman Paul (from Ireland) at night

A newly expanded and refurbished 'Babel' reopened its doors in early April and it is certainly worth checking out. All the hard work that must have gone into it definitely shows and it's certainly a place to chill out by the harbour and watch the world go by at any time of the day or evening.

A new block of apartments has been built close to the church. Called 'The Olive Grove' you can see the scanned brochure in the 'Hotels' webcards section. They are bookable as part of a package with Olympic or on their own directly with the owners.

New shops that have opened up in Plaka have included the clothes shop 'Noa Noa' and 'Zig Zag'

The Blue and White train has been in Ag Nik all season and the Happy Train now starts off from the kiddies' playground at the exit from the car-park

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Work on the site - In early March a server failure brought the planned relocation of the site forward by six weeks or so and threw me into a blind panic when I was back in the UK. Everything had to be transferred over from the backup copy I had but hopefully it seems to be relatively happy in its new home (fingers crossed!) - anyway there's a new installation of Gallery and those pics recovered from the old RaQ server went back up online (voting will close on the 31st July by the way for the 2004 Album Pics so get clicking now) plus the new Chat Room has actually had some use with a few of us testing it out and talking nonsense (isn't that what Sundays were meant for?) so please feel free to join us when we next use it. The lists have been updated to remove dead links and there is a slightly revised format for the free webcards that the site puts online which should hopefully give better site navigation. Now you'll be able to hop around without having to return to the frontpage quite so frequently. It's still a pretty basic set up but in all honesty it makes it easier to keep running and maintain. The Message Board will remain at eZboard.com as there are no plans to incorporate one into the site proper as yet (the Gallery is enough to worry about!). A multilanguage POP / webmail system has been added for those businesses who decide to follow the site as it enters its commercial phase in paying for promotional placements through this and some of the other makeITcrete Crete domain names. All freely created sites and featire pages will remain in place; it is just some of the free banner placements that have been stripped out to make way for those who wished to pay for advertising. Hopefully this will allow Elounda77.net and further Crete sites to develop as time goes on, both in terms of the amount of content served and the services on offer. In response to feedback received from users much of our future activity will centre around the makeITcrete.net domain with a Content Management System and backend database allowing better search queries, greater visitor input and wider geogrpahical coverage. Anyway that is enough waffle for the time being so I'll sign off and bid everyone a Happy 2005 Season.

PS: If you would like to receive more frequent and up to date News updates etc then please make sure you sign up to the Elounda77.net General Newsletter by clicking this link.