About Us The Flying Paradise Team
The team of Flying-paradise is composed of Christopher and Maria with Nils and this year, Steph.
Christophe, Flying Paradise's director is French and speaks perfect English (with just the slightest hint of a French accent!). He grew up in the Paris suburb area (hates towns since then), had a lot of problems at school, then difficulties to find his way before discovering nature and sports.
He has been involved with outdoor sports since the age of 19, teaching climbing, windsurfing, snow-boarding, and water-skiing. He has been flying hang-gliders and paragliders for the last 25 years.
Christophe is also a plane and micro-light pilot and he is now very much into sky diving, wing-suit flying and base-jumping. He has taught paragliding and worked as a tandem pilot in France, England, Venezuela, Bulgaria, Canada and Greece.
In 1995, he started to open flying sites in the east of Peloponnese, thereby creating Flying Paradise. He has been offering paragliding holidays and training seminars ever since.
Other than working in sport, Christophe had a loooong list of jobs, including: street artist (juggling, unicycle, tight rope), selling massages on the beach, diving fisherman and selling encyclopedias from door to door in Italy!!
Christophe’s other personal interest is to help stray animals. He also tries to understand why people are so obsessed by making as much money as possible instead of enjoying life, or wanting to kill other people, as well as destroying the planet.
Maria looks after the non flyers and anything that needs to be organised. Her smile and kindness always makes you feel at ease. She practices kayak and is a beginner paraglider pilot. Maria is Greek from Ligourio, a little village above which we often fly. Like Christophe she likes travelling, the country side and will fight to help the strays.
Nils as many among us, had difficult to follow the « system » and been travelling in many places, then went into sports, Ice hockey, motocross, and off course for a swiss guy, sky. He did his first tandem flight in 95 but learn only in 2003 for lack of money. Progressing quiet fast, he went into competition, got his tandem license and then become an instructor.
Steph, been doing kyte surfing and sailing since kid (he leave near the sea) then he discover climbing and mountain, while he study to be nurse. Seeing a paraglider while climbing, things go fast, he learn paragliding, work in a school as driver, start acrobatic while he specialize into mountain medicine.