” Learning about the new tactile tours at the Tactual Museum, one of the five that exist worldwide and located in Athens.

A few years ago I attended a tactile program in a German museum. The experience was unprecedented and the feeling, the understanding of the work completely different from the one I had the very next day, when I stood with my eyes open in front of the same exhibits. Touch made me feel surfaces, features and textures in an unprecedented way. I have wondered many times if there are tactile museums. There are only five worldwide and one of them is located in Athens, at 198 Doiranis Street, in Kallithea in a preserved building and is part of the Lighthouse for the Blind of Greece. The interesting information is that the Museum does not have few visitors, on the contrary, at least a thousand people visit the museum per month to feel this special experience.

The motto of this guided tour could be “Touch to Feel”. And it is true that in addition to touch, emotion is also involved. By closing the eyes and touching the head of a statue, its features take on another character, its face, nose and mouth, curls of hair and folds of cloth covering the body, the posture of a body you can imagine. You can experience this in the Tactual Museum, which was created with passion and love for visually impaired people and you, even if you are not blind, get closer to the cultural heritage from another path…”