On Sunday morning, the first of Crete's heavy seasonal downpours sent visitors scurrying from the waterfront in Hania.

In late September, you might expect that to be a handful of tourists, taking advantage of an emptying resort at the end of the season.

But Hania was packed. I checked four hotels before finding one room free for the weekend. By Sunday afternoon, the weather was glorious and the streets of the Old Town full again.

Older French and German tourists mixed with Scandinavian families on half-term break and young British couples, many with newly-born children on their first post-baby break.

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• Hania in autumn

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• 10 classic Greek Island tales

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• Hania in autumn

It was a busy July and August in Hania, the old capital of Crete and with one of the best-preserved Old Towns in the Mediterranean.

This year bears out the local adage that says the tourist industry runs from "parade to parade" - meaning the two public holidays that are held on March 25 to October 28.

Indeed, many hotels like mine, the Palazzo, closes on October 31 for winter. But a number of hotels and restaurants are now staying open even longer, from early March to November. And many are staying open year-round.

Susanna Koutoulaki, an Irish woman who has lived in Hania for 15 years, runs Portes restaurant in the Old Town, and will stay open throughout the winter. "On the waterfront, places don't close any more. A few still do, but close later while others might have a week off," she says.

An ever-growing international community helps year-round demand for restaurants, while Hania is also a lively university town. A new nightclub opened on Saturday near the harbourside swimming pool, jammed with youngsters lashed by high waves pounding the quayside.

And at 1.30am on Sunday we were the only foreigners in The Halkina, a loud locals' waterside bar a few hundred metres away from tourist central around the Venetian harbour.

At Taman, a popular restaurant built inside an old Turkish steam bath, there also wasn’t a table to be had on Sunday night. "Hania takes on a life of its own in winter," says Jenny Payavla, owner of the Well of The Turk restaurant, which stays open on winter weekends for lunch.

The big drawback is the lack of direct flights to Hania - previously the airport was served by XL, which went bust this summer. But easyJet runs services to Heraklion, the island capital, into November while there are also charter flights to Crete and indirect scheduled services from Athens, Milan and Rome to Hania.

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