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For the past week the weather has been very warm and sunny, good for swimming but a bit too hot for hiking comfortably along the coast. This morning was cloudy and humid, although by lunchtime the sky had cleared, and there is now a welcome breeze. We may get a little rain on Saturday and Sunday according to the forecast.

There is a lot of action on the sea with the numerous ferry and passenger boats, taxi boats, and rental boats.

We noticed a few new things around the village since we left in May.

At the bus parking area:

The public toilets had been vandalised in the spring, but they have been replaced and are fully functioning. The section of stone stairs leading from the buses which had been damaged by a falling boulder have not been repaired, just cleared so that people can use them.

Bright yellow glass bottle recycling bins have appeared by the bus shelter and the ferry ticket booth (we hope someday there will also be plastic bottle recycling!). Yesterday I drove around to several other villages, and they all have one of these bins (photo from Anopoli).



There are two new signs for secure parking at both petrol stations:



Elsewhere in the village:

Renovations are proceeding well at the old Panorama hotel overlooking the new harbour.



Unfortunately, the pharmacy is closed due to the pharmacist being ill (we were told he had a heart attack).

The NEN ferry ticket booth, which was badly damaged by a rockfall in the spring, has been resurrected.

There are bright yellow sunbeds and umbrellas on the front beach this year, courtesy of the Dimos.

On the back street, the Kourites Fighting Club from Chania is renovating a building for a ju jitsu studio, so next year the young Sfakians will be learning the discipline of unarmed combat!



At Ilingas Beach, a new business started in the summer offering guided day-long kayak trips (https://www.enjoy-crete.com/ilingas-beach-sea-kayaking/). You can see from the photo that they have bulldozed a smooth, wide path down to the western end of the beach leading to the kayaks and the cave with refreshments; it looks like the path to the eastern end hasn’t been renewed.



And at Frangokastello, they have nice new street lights. The castle has scaffolding around it and the main entrance is closed, but you can enter through the southern entrance.



More reports as and when I notice things.

good reads!!!

we look forward to experience the amendments when we arrive in 9 days

I think some in our group will try the kayaks if they are still in operation.

we also are curious to see the Xenia hotel extension .....

see you there.

The Olsen Group

We are staying in the Xenia on level 3.
The new extension to our balcony is really good, lots of room to sunbath.
This is built over rooms on level one and two facing the sea which have been enlarged.
This is a great improvement to the hotel.
You will be impressed.

Hello Jean,
Welcome back to the village. We hope you both will have a nice holiday/rest again in our lovely Chora Sfakion.
Thanks for your reports so far.

Those new streetlamps in frangostello we saw a lot of them in Sitia on the north east coast of Crete where we just come back from after we been there for a couple of weeks. These lamps are solar lamps and are really energy saving.

A few weeks ago it was a storm on Crete and we had it quite calm, as we wrote about on the forum but that changed. Because we had it were difficult to lift from the airport in Sitia when we were going to fly back to Copenhagen because of the heavy storm. And when we landed and has just checked in to the hotel at the airport (to stop the night to go go home to Sweden the next day) we received a textmessega from danish friends in Sitia that there flight was stopped from lifting because of the big storm. So our flight was the last plane to lift that evening. They all had to drive back to Sitia and stopped in hotels for the night and was flaying back the next day in the afternoon.

This year we will not come to Chora Sfakion in October because we just been in Sitia on the north east coast. See you hopefully in April again and are we are looking forward to all your reports this trip Jean.

Look after yourselves.

Best regards
Marie and Andrew