In recent years it has been the fashion for local yiortes to avoid the traditional multi-course meal, and charge only a small entrance fee, leaving visitors to purchase their own food choices from a buffet. This has been appreciated by many who did not feel inclined to consume large quantities of meat and carbohydrate on a hot summer’s evening, accompanied by traditional Cretan music played at deafening volume. The disadvantage for the organisers was uncertainty about the quantities of food which might be needed, with many people restricting themselves to downing large quantities of beer and wine.
Continue readingTag Archives: Afrata
A death in Afrata
The former host of the Kali Kardia taverna, Kostas Rethemiotakis, has died after a long illness at the age of 81. His funeral took place at the church of St George in Afrata on Wednesday 9th March 2025.
Continue readingA new date for the Afrata Honey Festival
The Afrata Honey Festival, originally scheduled for 17th July but cancelled because of the death of Stefanos Skarakis, will now take place on Wednesday 21st August – at the end of the customary 40-day mourning period.
Continue readingA death in Afrata
The funeral was held at St George’s church in Afrata yesterday of Stefanos Skarakis, who has died from lung cancer at the age of 48. Coming from a well-known Afrata family, Stefanos was a shepherd, like his father Michalis and his brother Giorgos, while he latterly did a number of different jobs. For several years he was an able and affable waiter at the Afrata Paradise beach bar in the summer, and last October he was working at the Tzerani olive oil mill in Kolymbari.
Continue readingFires near Afrata village
For some time now the site behind the small church of Agia Triada on the road between Kolymbari and Afrata, which for many years functioned as a quarry, has been in use as an unofficial rubbish dump. A month ago large quantities of waste were being deposited on an almost daily basis, with cars, pick-ups and even a large truck observed from the road above dropping off materials.
Continue readingA forest of sea squills
In recent days, the countryside between Kolymbari and Afrata has become filled with tall spikes of white flowers on a narrow stem which seem to rise straight up from the ground with no supporting plant underneath. While they almost certainly appear annually, their profusion this year is unusual, attracting the attention of tourists who have been seen photographing them at the roadside, and prompting us to carry out a Google image search to establish their identity.
Continue readingArchaeological find in Afrata
Dutifully taking our recycling to the rubbish bins next to the graveyard in Afrata the other day, we noticed what seemed to be a piece of marble, possibly a remnant from a demolished building, lying beside them. We gave it no further thought, but as a report in Haniotika Nea this week makes clear, others were more observant:
Continue readingThe Afrata Honey Festival revived
On Wednesday evening, July 19th, the Afrata Honey Festival was held for the first time since the end of the pandemic, at the old primary school in Afrata village – a handsome building set high above the road to Astratigos and overlooking Kolymbari bay, with an extensive courtyard in front seemingly designed for large-scale events. It was organised by the “Afrata Cultural Association ‘Peninsula of Peace’”, known to locals simply as “the Syllogos”, which had become somewhat moribund in recent years, partly because of Covid and possibly also through a lack of interest by the older generation who served on its committee. However, following elections earlier in the year the Syllogos had been revivified by an intake of young blood, and residents were waiting with interest to see what results this might bring.
Continue readingCarol singing in Afrata
The custom of carol singing, which has ancient origins, has fortunately not died out in Greece, and all over the country during the Christmas period there are more or less elaborate rituals in which the local youth do the rounds of the houses in their neighbourhood to knock on doors and ask the question “na poume ta kalanda?” (“shall we sing the carols?”). On receiving the affirmative they launch into what is usually a single well-known carol celebrating the birth of Christ in a manger in Bethlehem, accompanied by the sound of triangles. The householder then donates sweets or money according to their inclination.
On Christmas Eve this year the youth of Afrata turned up at our door to sing a carol for the benefit of the village’s Cultural Association: “Peninsula of Peace”. In return for a donation they presented an Afrata 2023 calendar (illustrated). It is notable for carrying a photograph of what has become a sort of local monument – a tree which hangs perilously over the road up to the village from Kolymbari.
Of indeterminate type (possibly a wild olive) it has been growing there for at least the past 10 years. Initially wind-blown but upright, it has gradually leaned further and further over the edge, presenting an obvious hazard to the passing motorist, and in particular to the KTEL bus which visits the village twice a day.
With the typical Cretan tendency to let things be when there is no obvious reason for interfering, the locals (or possibly the municipality of Platanias) have sought neither to prop it up nor to give it the coup de grâce, merely confining themselves to trimming it now and then to ensure that it does not obstruct the road too much. Now clearly in a precarious state, it will be interesting to see if it survives another year.
A video of the carol in question can be seen here.