Thursday 6 November 2008

The Blue Flag

The tourist season finished a week ago, with the last of the chartered flights leaving Hania. It will open once again in the last week of March.

This noticeboard gives information about designated blue flag beaches in Greece, an international system for testing water quality. The best noticeboards in Hania are the ones by the beaches, especially when the beach is off the beaten track. Most of the information posted on the board has to do with rules and codes of conduct in these nature spots.

This particular beach (Elafonisi) has been categorised as a 'Blue Flag' beach, which basically means that the water has been tested for pollution, and was found to be very clean. Crete is surrounded by water, hence it has one of the highest numbers of designated blue-flag beaches in Greece. As the poster notes, there are over 400 blue-flag beaches right around the country; 96 are found in Crete, and 27 of those 96 are located in Hania.

The pollution tests will be recalculated next year and a new poster will be produced for the next tourist season.

Yesterday's quiz: the drum from an old washing machine is now being used as a barbecue. Ten points to Quint!

7 comments:

  1. Good on Crete to have so many clean water beaches. (Your) life is a beach.
    Wish we could say the same over here at the end of the Med.
    And great re-use as a barbie yesterday.

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  2. we have a lot of those here in Spain to... :-)

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  3. this is a wonderful system...
    wish we had it here too.

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  4. Crete must be a wonderful place to be. Last year I was on the Peloponesus and I found it wonderful.

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  5. We should do that system here in Hawaii.
    End of season is melancholy & lovely-
    Aloha from Waikiki-

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  6. Great to see such information made readily available too!

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