Magical Crete
The Memory Creators
The Memory Creators
We are so excited to share our journey through Magical Crete with you. From the very first moment we set foot on the island, and long before we even met each other, we were both enchanted by the island, by its people, its nature, its history and its deep rooted culture and its sense of uniqueness in the world. Over the years, we found that despite working hard at being good guides, despite trying to inform ourselves as best as we could and learn about the places we were visiting with our groups, we learned very little about what attracted us to Crete in the first place. We learned about impressive heroics, dates and names and how many people were killed at a certain place. We repeated these stories and data ad nauseam every time we went to our extremely limited number of destinations, and we thought we were great.
And as the years went by, the only thing that changed were the faces in the groups we were taken to this very limited number of destinations. Slowly but surely, and independent of each other, we both started to realise that despite the glamourous facade of “Tourist Guide in Crete”, we simply missed the very essence of what held us spellbound when we arrived here first. Despite knowing all the numbers and official facts, we knew nothing about what really mattered, we knew nothing about the soul of the place. We knew nothing about the mysterious power that constantly shapes and reshapes the island and its people. We did know that neither of us, nor our colleagues in the tourist game ever came even close to the raw power that pulsates through the island and its people. The power that binds them together into an unstoppable lifeforce rarely experienced elsewhere in the world. And we knew that because we completely missed the raw essence of Crete, we were unable to let those who trusted us to show them “The Real Crete” experience it. We found ourselves at a crossroads and knew we had to make a decision. We had to either play the game with the industry and keep the make belief going, or we had to take a leap into the unknown and trust the raw essence of Crete to guide us. Standing at that crossroads, we met.
In early 2020 the Covid 19 epidemic hit Greece, and everything was turned on its head. The tourist industry took a huge hit and numbers dropped significantly. Enda had some ideas about how things should and shouldn’t be done and he had the opportunity to use this time to further develop and test his ideas whenever he could.
Very soon it became clear that two things needed doing in order for this dream to become reality. It was very obvious that what he wanted to achieve could not be done within the existing framework of tourism, and he also realised he couldn’t do it alone. He needed a like-minded person who was willing to help develop this way of working, a way for which there was no existing structure or even part structure. This needed to be built up from the bottom, by trial and error and most of all perseverance. And Anouska was that perfect like-minded person.
We talked about it, danced the dance of trial and error, and found that suddenly we were in touch with the illusive soul of the island, its history and its people. For months we explored every square cm of our target area, the province of Rethymno. We drove and walked kilometers, and ate great food in between. We learned how to do our research so that we didn’t walk into the trap of tourist oriented information. With the help of friends, historians and archaeologists, other guides but most of all, the many local people who realised we had no intention of invading their villages and areas with busloads of people, but were genuinely interested, we found our path.
We were told about ancient places, about little known beautiful churches still covered with 800 or 900 years old frescoes. We were told about the frescoes and their meaning. We had local farmers talking to us about the nymphs that live on the land, in the water and the trees, about an ancient Greek hermit who could talk with the animals and we found out why there are more women in hell then men …
Landscapes came alive with myths and mythological figures, we learned where the ancient Gods and Goddesses walked the earth, and we knew this was what we had been looking for.
The more we discover, the more we learn, the more we know we are on the right path to making the dream come true.
For now, our test cases were limited to using friends as guinea pigs for our dream, which we named the “Magical Mystery Tours”.
We are constantly fine-tuning the idea of the Magical Mystery Tours and use our experiences to create different approaches to the tours, depending on what those wanting to do a Magical Mystery Tour tell us about their expectations for the tour.
There are no fixed tours, there are no fixed structures because each tour is unique, tailor-made for the people who asked for the tour. We deny ourselves the luxury of becoming complacent. The dreams forces us to remain inquisitive about everything so that we can offer the best of the best for every experience. Most of all, the dream requires us to remain passionate about what we do.
We believe we have found that elusive concept of “new tourism” and are ready to offer our knowledge, but most of all our passion to those who want to try a new way of visiting and exploring this island.
Memory Creators
