Booking your trip

+30 6993347321

our emailaddress

[email protected]

Category: honey tasting

New “package” of humanity in Halkidiki: Tourism for people with visual disabilities
“Sensory Experience” is the theme of the new tourist product that is being built in the region of Eastern Halkidiki and in which people with visual disabilities can participate. “We are creating tourism products based on alternative forms of tourism for people with visual disabilities, who, apart from their vision, have developed their other senses” Polytimi Markogiannaki, the organiser of the tourism package, tells GRTimes.Gr.

 Ντέπυ Χιωτοπούλου ([email protected])

With the motto accessibility everywhere and with basic values of independence, equality and above all safety, Polytimi Markogiannaki, owner of Aristotle’s Paths and Thanasis Sideris of Accessibility Support Academy join forces and create a new product, a tourist product, accessible to people with visual disabilities who suffer from total or partial loss of vision.

“The aim is for everyone to have access to tourism, and for people with disabilities to be able to go on holiday, because it is very difficult to go and not be able to do anything,” Polytimi Markogiannaki, who has studied Political Science, specialising in alternative forms of tourism, tells GRTimes.gr. At the same time, she is the owner of Aristotle’s Paths based in Stratoniki, East Halkidiki, attempting her new start only in December 2021.

As she tells GRTimes.gr in collaboration with Thanasis Sideris of the consulting company Accessibility Support Academy specializing in creating accessibility “we are creating a package based on alternative forms of tourism and aimed at people with visual disabilities” noting that these people, apart from vision, have developed their other senses, smell, taste, touch, hearing.

In fact, as he stresses, it is the first time that something like this is being organized in Northern Greece, saying that in Volos there are some similar actions aimed at visually impaired people.

Diving and visit to a farm

The routes created by Polytimi Markogiannaki in the region of Eastern Halkidiki are of cultural, naturalistic and gastronomic character and combine Aristotle’s philosophy of the four elements (water, air, earth, fire). The aim is to create an experiential experience for the visitor, whether Greek or foreigner.

This is where the experiential experience for visually impaired people is added. The how, he explains right away: “We have prepared an experiential experience called ‘Sensory Experience’ that includes diving and a visit to a small horse farm,” says Ms. Markogiannaki, explaining how they will be able to participate in this experiential experience.

“In the diving, people with visual disabilities will breathe, listen to their respirator, their heartbeat, have the sensation of swinging, touch the sand, and in the horse farm they will get in touch with the animals, ride horses” she says, noting “apart from safety, which is the most important thing, we want them to be able to feel independence, that they can do things”.

The experiential experience for people with visual disabilities is scheduled for Saturday, September 3, and as Ms. Markogiannaki informs GRTimes.gr, the response has been very positive, both from associations of people with disabilities and people from the School for the Blind and from parents with children who have the disability. “We offer security, independence, access to tourism”, Polytimi Markogiannaki stresses.

Security, Equity, Independence

Thanasis Sideris, a trainer for people with visual disabilities, is part of the above tourist program of experiential experience for people with visual disabilities. He suffers from total vision loss, yet all he does is not give up.

He is the man who designed the innovative project at the first visually impaired-friendly supermarket store in Thessaloniki, which opened in early July 2022.

“We are coming to connect our knowledge on accessibility and the tourism product,” Thanasis Sideris, the project coordinator for this tourism project that Ms. Markogiannaki is ‘building’, tells GRTimes.gr.

As he explains “our goal is to create accessibility in tourism to people with visual disabilities, to be able to enjoy a good, equally, independently and safely” adding that as far as the accessibility part is concerned “there is nothing fixed, it depends on the case, at least when we talk about the human factor”.

Supervising the Experiential Tourism Package

As far as this particular experiential tourism package “Experience of the senses” is concerned, as Mr. Sideris, “as coordinators, we supervise so that there is absolute safety” with the diving to include staff trained to handle people with visual disabilities, and the visit to a farm and, by extension, horseback riding, “we have evaluated and supervised the course that will be done with the horse, to ensure the safety of people with visual disabilities.”

It is noted that Mr. Sideris, in addition to the innovative project he designed in the first supermarket store, friendly to people with visual disabilities, is, among other things, a trainer in serving people with visual disabilities, scientific advisor to the company Tandem, which together with the National Center for Research and Technological Development (NCRTD) were instrumental in achieving the project in the supermarket, a large chain in Thessaloniki and nationwide, and together with Lia Avraam and Fotini Baxevanou, the only mobility trainers for people with visual disabilities in Northern Greece, have created the company Accessibility Support Academy, from April 2022.

“I want my fellow human being to be safe,” 34-year-old Thanasis Sideris, who suffers from total vision loss, tells GRTimes.gr.

Source: www.grtimes.gr

beer tasting, Experiential Tourism, Fishing Trip, Gastronomy, honey tasting, Scuba diving, Scuba diving Halkidiki, Sustainable Tourism, Tourism, Travel, Wine tasting

Aristotles Paths

A company in Halkidiki was awarded for its excellent work and its Aristotelian philosophy!

An excellent tourist agency that stands out from the rest is Aristotle’s Paths. It is distinguished by its Aristotelian philosophy, its actions and its way of thinking.

Aristotle’s Paths, based in Stratoniki, Aristotle’s Paths, was awarded by the Region of Central Macedonia, in the framework of the international tourism exhibition Philoxenia 2022, with the gold award “Excellence”, in the field of tourism services.

Aristotle’s Paths is a vision of the owner of the office, Polytimi Markogiannaki, who from the beginning wanted to combine the philosophy of Aristotle with the four elements (water, air, earth, fire) and with special cultural and hiking routes in eastern Halkidiki.
And he succeeded. Ms. Markogiannaki made a dream come true!
Each route is considered in every detail to offer a unique experience through the senses. According to her, the central idea of the team is to work with local companies that have a positive ecological or social impact on the region.
“I am working on Aristotle’s philosophy of the four elements (earth, air, water, fire) and have created some specific routes. For example, in Varvara waterfalls our main element is water, in Arnea another cultural route has to do with earth, in ancient Stagira our element is air”, explains Ms. Markogiannaki speaking to XalkidikiPolitiki.
Another activity of Aristotle’s Paths is the one called wine games, which is unique in Halkidiki: “It is an underwater wine cellar that can be experienced by diving. The underwater conditions organize a completely different taste, as the lack of oxygen underwater does not allow the wine to make the fermentations that would have taken place in air conditions, thus creating a special and unique taste!” she continues to say.

Ms.Markogiannaki says that through an experiential experience she aims to be able to combine local gastronomy (oil, honey, wine), images, nature, smells, so as to give an added value to the tourist product of the region.
At the same time, thinking about the basic values of life and especially the sense of freedom, the owner of Aristotle’s Paths wanted to join forces with the Accessibility Support Academy for a single common goal: equal accessibility everywhere. So they proceeded to develop alternative forms of tourism – with the main theme of sensory experience – for people with visual disabilities.

“It is very important that all people today have access to tourism and can do interesting things during their holidays”, underlines Polithimi Markogiannaki, who has studied Political Science with specialization in alternative forms of tourism, stressing that “these people, apart from vision, have developed the rest of their senses: smell, taste, touch, hearing”.
If you are visiting Halkidiki and are looking for a different experience that you probably haven’t had before, it’s worth the effort to visit Aristotle’s Paths in Stratoniki that will definitely steal your thunder.

Source: www.xalkidikipolitiki.com

beer tasting, Experiential Tourism, Gastronomy, honey tasting, Scuba diving, Scuba diving Halkidiki, Storytelling, Sustainable Tourism, Tourism, Travel, underwater wine cellar, Wine tasting

Aristotles Paths

Logo
When you start a trip, you do not just plan a route, you get involved in the five senses of the place you are visiting. Perfumes, images, local gastronomy, customs and traditions. In the end you change because you experienced something different. Let's start a journey together P. Markogiannaki Founder at Aristotle’s Paths

Information