Somewhere between Filiatra and Kyparissia, in the picturesque fishing village of Agrilis Messinia, in the southwestern Peloponnese, there is a castle that looks as if it has sprung from another era.
Maybe also from another dimension one would say, judging by how out of place it is in relation to its surrounding environment.
A castle that reminds of a fairy tale and precisely because it is a "name and a thing", we refer to the Castle of Fairy Tales. It is a castle so impressive and fairytale-like, that if someone told you to "close your eyes until we arrive" and you only opened them when you reached its gates, you would think you were in Disneyland.
Indeed, its donor, its initiator, and - to a large extent - dits creator, the doctor Charalambos Fournarakis or Harry Fournier as he is known, created an effect like no other.
By combining geographically and temporally incongruous stories, and literally mixing various themes from Greek and Western history and mythology, was made "to remind all of us, like this with his thoria, of the fairy tales that our grandmother sweetly told us".
Time seems to stop as the visitor can see thematic sections from the Trojan War to the Greek Revolution of 1821.
In the Castle, which was completed around the middle of the previous century, one can admire majestic turrets, knights' armor, battlements, coats of arms, a huge Trojan Horse which used to function as a library, large figures of Poseidon and Athena and many other attractions both in its courtyard and inside.
It is worth mentioning that over the decades, the castle was particularly popular in the surrounding areas and managed to function as a theater venue and visual performances, a museum, a leisure and walking area, even as a hotel.
Huge and imposing, mysterious and... eerie, this building gives the visitor an otherworldly feeling; a strange mixture of nostalgia, romance, despair at the incomprehensibility of his "entangled" stories, and rage.
Perhaps the latter is also the dominant one, seeing such an original and special space left to decay and the deterioration of time, at the same time enduring all kinds of vandalism from unconscious visitors (garbage, graffiti, deterioration of objects). Probably, in some other country of the western world, this particular creation, to some original to others kitsch, which could well be an all-year attraction for travelers, would never come to such a state. Alas, though.
The Association which manages it is unable to meet the costs of maintenance and the necessary arrangements so that it can be utilized in any way and it is requested that the municipality of Trifylia undertake it, maybe a solution will be found.
However, even with its unkempt aspect, its grassy courtyard and broken ornaments, the Castle of Fairy Tales, however poor it now looks, remains gorgeous and captivating. As Harry Fournier used to say, "Measure a man not by his money, not even by his knowledge, but by the amount of happiness he gives to his fellow men."
So maybe he is not experiencing the glamor of his glorious past, while only three to four cars approach it on a daily basis, however that nostalgic happy smile she gives to the few romantic types who visit with their families is priceless…
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