March Excursion with Rethymnon CIC Group: Going East!

Kritsa - Panagia Church & traditional Village - Agios Nikolaos - Elounda- Spinalonga- Plaka. This coach excursion to Eastern Crete - organized by Albert van Elst / Tourist Services Satellite (office in Rethymnon on the beach road opposite the Delfini) will take place on Sunday 28th March. This excursion is a unique opportunity for those of us who live in the Rethymnon / Hania area to get a taste of the east of the island at a really great time of year. As ever, costs are kept as low as possible and any profits will go towards a local charity. Please note that lunches, entrance fees and gifts to guides are not included in prices quoted. Albert writes: We’ll start to pick up passengers at around 8.00 am from Georgioupolis main square. We can pick up guests from Georgioupolis, Kavros, Rethymnon, Missiria, Platanes, Adele, Skaleta, Panormo and Agia Pelagia, but always only from the main highway. As we are going East, our start time is a little earlier for our monthly excursion (which is already “a hit” within our C.I.C activities). We will explore the east of Crete and although many of us have been living here for many years, maybe this part of our island is still a secret for some of you. We will be under the care of probably the most famous guide on Crete - Victor Zorbas - find out more on the www.victorzorbas.com website. He has designed this program especially for us. First of all we will go to the Panagia church in Kritsa. This is a three aisled church with wall paintings dating back to the 13th century. Then we visit the traditional village Kritsa, where former Greek minister, but also Movie star Melina Mercouri and her husband/director Jules Dassin filmed “the Miracle of Kritsa”. From Kritsa we pass on to Agios Nikolaos and make a photo stop above the city. It is 15 minutes from here to get to the most luxurious beach resort on Crete, Elounda. Here ministers, celebrities, famous sports people come for their holidays and it all started with the great English statesmen Winston Churchill who had a house in the village. From Elounda we will take a boat to the island Spinalonga and we will hear all the history of the island from Victor. He has written two books about the island and the surrounding area. Many of us will be familiar with the story about this former Leper colony island from the BBC TV series “Who pays the ferryman?” and also more recently from the book “The Island” by Victoria Hislop. Lunch will be in the traditional village of Plaka and after this we return to our pick up stations. Because this excursion takes us a bit further away the cost of the coach is higher than usual, but we are not going to increase the ticket price. However, we do need a minimum of 25 people to sign up for the tour. We should easily be able to get this number because it’s a week before Easter and we can invite our friends and relatives who are visiting us on holiday to come along too. We will have a vote to decide which charity the profits of the trip will go towards at the Rethymnon CIC coffee morning at La Bamba on 1st April.

Price: 15,00 euro p.p. for members of the C.I.C and 17,50 for non members. Bookings can be made by email: info@winterincrete.com or by phone 28310-56641. Tickets can also be obtained at the Rethymnon CIC coffee morning which takes place on Thursday 4th March at the La Bamba bar.’ Note from the editor: We are really looking forward to this trip and thoroughly enjoyed last month’s excursion too. It was a great day out! We’ll be putting in photographs of the February and March excursions in our April edition.

Looking Further Ahead: Trip to Zaros in April!

This is not an ‘organized excursion’ in the conventional sense but is an outing that is starting to become a grand tradition for some of us. And newcomers are of course very welcome to join the party too! To recap from last year: Zarós is a beautiful village towards the South of the Psiloritis mountain range, known for its fresh water springs and beautiful surroundings. The village is also near to the famous sites of Festos, Agia Triada and Gortys (find out more in our feature articles in the April and May 2008 editions, and also in our March and May 2009 issues). We are planning a return visit on April 17th/18th (Saturday to Sunday two weeks after Easter). The Rethymnon posse has been offered some preferential rates in a couple of places. As ever, the suggestion is that we could start by rewarding ourselves for getting there with a decent lunch at the Taverna Votomos (Trout Farm) at around 1pm, and do our own thing after that for the rest of the afternoon. There are various places to stay in Zaros, we’ve been offered the following deal by Vivi for Studio Keramos: 40 Euros for a double room (20 Euros per person if sharing: obviously if you want a single room there will be a supplement) which includes Kyria Katerina’s legendary enormous Cretan breakfast and ‘welcome teas and coffees’. Vivi has also proposed a set rate for supper at her restaurant Vegera of 15 Euros per head: a multi-course dinner with a variety of dishes made using organic produce which will also include lashings of free wine and raki (and water, of course). Ideally we’d like to get an idea of numbers for Keramos and / or the set meal at Vegera by the April Coffee Morning. If you are interested in participating contact Kate or Luc at the Bugle via email, snail mail or phone. Directions and finalized details will be given in our April issue. See you there!