In a pandemic situation, finding strength, determination, tenacity, attachment to one’s work becomes difficult. You can only be determined with teamwork, trusting your professionalism, but most importantly your workmates.
Thanks to this determination, the Walking Stones project was born. An idea that aims, despite everything, at the seasonal adjustment of tourist flows, aiming at a quality of services and a specific user target.
The project is conceived by “Omini di Pietra”, a company that deals with sustainable experiential outdoor tourism, together with other companies “Masseria Redenta” and the “Moscatella Garden”. The project was born from the meeting and the passion for long walks, and the passion for the beauty that surrounds us. In October 2020 we created appointments on the territory, respecting all the measures that were asked of us for the safety of each participant, trying not to lose the idea of discovering a territory that in the autumn months offers soft colors that are lost in the spot’s woods and in the lights of the sunsets.
The project was divided into four stages, each focusing on an aspect of the territory:
- Path of Water and Stone – A path with environmental hiking guides, between nature and culture on the Peucete origins of the city of Gravina and the geomorphological and ecological peculiarity of the canyon along which the city rises.
- The Secrets of the Cathedral – An unusual path in the splendid cathedral “Santa Maria Assunta” in Gravina, with the extraordinary opening of two very special places: the Soccorso, that is the underground cemetery area of the basilica and the ascent to the bell tower passing through the prisons, between religion, legends and tradition, splendid places that amaze anyone who comes to them in this adventure.
- The Moscatella Garden and Specchia in Specchia excursion – We start by getting to know the Moscatella Botanical Garden, a true jewel of landscape creativity, told by the owner and designer Filippo Marroccoli and then set off on the Murgia di Sant’Elia crossing the Murgian pseudosteppa.
- Beekeeping laboratory – An activity reserved for psychiatric disabled, and managed by Masseria Redenta, which with practical activities, funny stories and lots of interaction with users, tells the importance of bees for our ecosystems and for our biodiversity, all during the preparation of a cream with a beeswax base.
With the Walking Stones project, we believed that there was the time and the need to take a break from what we are facing in these months because only stopping us helps us to clarify what is happening around and within us.