The spirit of a place
Every place has a spirit—a layer of meaning, history, and practices—that imbues the landscape and its people. The ancient Romans had a word for this, numen. Numen was a quality of a specific place—of a grove of trees, or a hillside.
Numen is not of the mind—it is something you feel in your body.
It is the creators and makers of a place who guard its numen. The way to that spirit is not to watch, or to study—it is by doing. And your guides must be the creators who work the land with their own hands—Andrea who drives his olives to the mill at 3 am to ensure that they are processed first. Elena Fucci who chose to stay in Basilicata, on the black earth of the volcano, because she could not bear for her grandfather to lose his vineyard.
Our tours are not about museums. Yes, this land is ancient, and people have lived here for thousands of years following many of the same traditions. But the creators on our tours are not performing for tourists—they are adapting these traditions because they work, in a world that is rediscovering the importance of the local, the slow, and the sustainable.
