Contents
Around Town
No Airport in Rethymnon
This is ‘non-news’ really, but we quite like this sometimes. Airport? What airport? Well, apparently in the booming 1980s the Greek government had the idea that Rethymnon could do with an airport. In the days when the tourism industry appeared to be growing fast and people were less worried about carbon footprints than they are now, this idea apparently wasn’t considered to be completely ridiculous. An area was located near Latzima. The land was requisitioned, and then nothing happened. Time passed, tourism stopped growing exponentially, and the realisation dawned that the area could not accommodate large tourist charters anyway…. So now a group of former land owners have asked for the requisition order to be reversed and have gone to the Supreme Court to get their case heard. They will have to pay back the compensation that they received 25 years ago, but they don’t seem to be too bothered about that. OK. So what’s happening to our ferry?!
Market Shares
It’s the new game in town: “Where is the Thursday market going to be this week?” Well don’t quote us, but try looking at the car park by the Four Martyrs Square in the first instance. The traders seem to like this location. But things change rapidly here, so we’ll try and keep you updated on the
www.rethymnon.biz forum and
Facebook group. Are we any further to finding a permanent location? (Elvis? Golfing? Mars?). Not really. The municipal council has come up with yet another proposal. A new square will be created in Kalithea, in Konstantinoupoli Street, which would be ideal for the market. However, until this square is ready (optimistic estimate is at the beginning of 2010) the Thursday market is supposed to be split in two mini markets – one section trading in Konstantinoupoli street and one section trading in Demokratias street (right in front of the Town hall). The market people say “we can live with that decision”. The local residents say “we can’t live with that decision” and now they are taking their case to the Cretan Regional Authority to try and get this decision reverted. This is a pointless course of action as the municipal council can only make suggestions (about the location of the market that is!), and can’t make any decisions. And so it goes on and on and on. But as we have said before, at least it gives us something to write about! And finally, it has been pointed out that if the Thursday market does move to Kalithea then traders and producers would definitely want to find a new location for the Monday market, as they won’t want to have two different markets in the same area.
Sport Review
Our roving reporter enjoyed watching the beach volleyball tournament. Anyway, back to business….Our local football team Asteras are not doing too badly right now! So far they have had three wins, two losses and one draw. At the moment they are sitting comfortably mid table. Fingers crossed!
Krisses - the women’s football team - have got a tough time ahead as at the end of the season, four out of the eight teams in their group will be relegated to the different regional leagues. They will have to be at their best in all the games if they are to have any chance of survival. Their first game of the season is on November 8th and is an away game in Attica. The following weekend they will be playing their first home game of the season. We wish them all the best, and will be keeping you updated with progress reports on the www.rethymnon.biz website.
As far as the basketball goes it’s not exactly slam dunk with AGOR. The first two games of the season gave us all hope; two wins - who could ask for more?!. However, on Halloween they played Irakleion in a local derby and lost. Were they thinking too much about the fancy parties going on back in Rethymnon? Whatever the case, they need to be a bit more on the ball in future if they want to make it to the top league next season.
OPER, our female volleyball team (not the beach kind, mind you) are not having the best of times at the moment. Having been newly promoted, they faced some tough opposition in their first three games of the new season. And, perhaps not surprisingly they ‘failed to win’ all three of them. Had Lady Fortuna been a bit more on their side, they might have gained some more points. Anyway, on the plus side, it’s all good experience and as one famous Belgian female tennis player once said, “Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”. We hope they are listening to you, Kim!
Gun Control
Yes we know, the words ‘gun’ and ‘control’ don’t always go together here on the island. But anyway, the people from Armeni, Kastellos and Somatas, supported by the local authorities are pleading with the Ministry of Defence to close down the local firing range. Because of the recent building boom (or relatively recent building boom, construction in some places is a bit doom and gloom right now) the number of new homes of in the area has increased, this has meant that the ‘safety’ distance between the range and nearby residences area has been reduced to about 500 metres. This means it is no longer a viable option to use this firing range (was it ever in the first case?). And we’re not talking handgun practice, here. They play about with bombshells, mortars and rockets. Ah, the joys of the peaceful Cretan countryside….
