The President of the Parliament, Konstantinos Tasoulas, visited the Historic Cafe “Kipos” on Sunday 3 October as part of an official visit to Chania. The President of the  Parliament  was given a tour around the premises by the business owner and host of the Historic Cafe, Vasilis Stathakis. He had the opportunity to take a look at the historical photo exhibition permanently housed in the Café, and to discuss with Mr. Stathakis not only about the Cafe’s actions, but also for his initiatives as President of the Cultural Route “Historic Cafes Route”.

Mr. Stathakis elaborated on the successes of the “Historic Cafes Route” culminating in the hosting of the 11th International Annual Advisory Forum “Cultural Routes” of the Council of Europe to be held in Chania, 5-7 October 2022.

Mr Stathakis also referred to the cultural route “Historic Cafes Route”, which serves as a “bridge” of cultural interconnection of historical cafes internationally, ensuring the protection and preservation of their intangible and tangible cultural, architectural and artistic heritage. Moreover, this initiative also aspires at officially placing historical Cafes among the most important sites of visit in each city, in the context of alternative cultural tourism, as active guardians of History and Culture. He also referred to the proposals tabled to Snežana Samardžić – Marković, Director-General of the Council of Europe and to the Executive Secretary of the Enlarged partial Agreement of Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe and Director of the Institute for Cultural Routes Stefano Dominioni concerning the creation of an office – branch of Cultural Routes in Chania, Crete. As Mr. Stathakis explained, setting up such an office-branch will promote Chania, as a city comparable to Luxembourg and Strasbourg, with tourism activity 365 days a year, while at the same time consolidating the hitherto non-existent institutional tourism in the city, as well as further developing cultural, institutional and conference tourism. Cultural entrepreneurship will skyrocket alongside the visibility of Chania, Crete & Greece worldwide.

In addition, Mr. Stathakis briefed the Parliament President on the co-operation between the ” Historic Cafes Route” and the newspaper “Chaniotika Nea” and the weekly column “Walk to the world’s Historic Cafes”, detailing the history and tradition of Historic Cafes – members of the “Historic Cafes Route”. The series of publications, once completed, will become a luxury edition to be presented to the European Parliament in Brussels with a view to making the cultural heritage of Historic Cafes more visible internationally.

Finally, the President of the Parliament and Vasilis Stathakis discussed extensively the process of integrating the Hellenic Parliament Cafe into the “Historic Cafes Route”, with Mr. Tasoulas declaring his enthusiasm about what he described as an “excellent idea”.

During his visit to the Historic Cafe “Kipos”, the President of the Parliament was accompanied by the Mayor of Platanias, Giannis Malandrakis, the Director-General of the Foundation “Eleftherios Venizelos”, Nikos Papadakis, the MP from Chania, Manousos Voloudakis, the regional consultant and President of the Municipal and Regional Theater of Crete (DIPETHEK), Sophia Malandrakis and the artistic Director of DIPETHEK, Efi Theodorou.

It is worth noting that Konstantinos Tasoulas traveled to Chania to attend an honorary event organized by the Municipality of Platanias to honor Nikolaos Renieris, first President of the Hellenic Parliament. The President of the Hellenic Parliament unveiled Renieri’s bust at Palaia Roumata and talked about the decisive role he played during the 1821 revolution and also during the post-revolutionary events. The event was held as part of the Celebration of the 200 years since the Greek Revolution of 1821. The bust of Nikolaos Renieri was crafted by Giannis Markantonakis.