What if walking were more than just a journey? What if it became a way to learn, grow, and rediscover yourself? With my story, these questions find their answer. 

I was born to walk, I was born to be on my element, which is the earth. I walk every day for at least an hour, often two, something that isn’t always easy to reconcile with family and work commitments. But I can’t give it up. And so, at a certain point, I told myself that I would like to integrate walking with what I do professionally. 

Walking is indeed a simple act, accessible to all, but today it is also a revolutionary act: it forces us to physical effort, to slowness, to sharing and genuine encounters with others; it pushes us to reflect on ourselves, on eternity, on nature. 

The beginning of the project 

It all started as a game two years ago. I work at the Società Dante Alighieri in Geneva, where I teach Italian to foreigners, and my students, captivated by the way I described my walking journeys along the Francigena with enthusiasm, repeatedly asked me to organize a pilgrimage for them in Italy. I accepted the challenge, and in September 2023, I and a group of 8 pilgrims set off for a week on one of the most beautiful sections of the route, from San Miniato to Bagno Vignoni. 

A transformative experience 

The journey was extraordinarily fun for everyone, as well as enriching from a historical, cultural, and gastronomic point of view; the linguistic benefits were truly tangible because, while walking, my pilgrims had the opportunity to speak with me and the other Italian-speaking guide for many hours each day.

From there, I didn’t stop: in 2024 we continued by walking the Tuscia section to Rome, I re-proposed the Tuscany Francigena in October, and this year, in May, we will do a section of the Puglia Francigena (from Polignano to Brindisi) from May 2nd to 8th, a route that, with some modifications, I will surely propose again in 2026. 

In the meantime, I obtained a diploma in Logotherapy at the School of Analysis and Existential Therapies in Lausanne with a manifesto article on walking therapy, but not just as a walk & talk for an hour with a client, rather starting from a minimum of half a day (about 3 hours) to be walked – not exclusively – on the Swiss Francigena, since I live here, and many stretches are of extraordinary beauty, especially the arrival at the Hospice of San Bernardo, a place that is bound to spiritually, scenically, and historically move you (a hospice open for over a thousand years to welcome strangers or pilgrims, every day of the year!). 

The Birth of Peripateo 

Thus, I created Peripateo with the intention of offering both experiences, and I named it this way because in Greek, περιπατέω means to walk, but also to converse, and more simply, to live.

The symbol of the Enneagram is a figure at the base of Gurdjieff’s teaching: a map for interpreting reality and personalities. I guide individuals on a search for themselves while walking, just as I guide my students in discovering Italy and its hidden gems, less crowded by mass tourism, with specific exercises for both therapy and Italian (I always prepare a teaching dossier, and my students must prepare a presentation). 

I walk to stretch time because, as the great Luciano de Crescenzo said, “The trouble is that men study how to extend life, when instead, they should study how to widen it” and the experience of walking, for those who have tried it, is a magnificently amplified way of living.