Trekking letterario

Simonetta Sandri · 24 August 2026

Scalare la montagna della scrittura

A literary trek is a walking excursion that combines hiking in nature (or through villages) with reading excerpts, poems, or novels connected to the places crossed. It is not simply about strolling, but about experiencing the landscape through the words of authors who described it, lived it, or drew inspiration from it. An immersion into places while looking back at the past, retracing the steps of poets, narrators, and singers through memory. A unique emotion.

Why combine trekking and literature?

The answer is simple: walking and storytelling both consist of three stages: balance, imbalance, and the creation of a new balance. Beginning, pause, effect. We enjoy walking and it makes us feel good, just as we enjoy reading or creating stories and they make us feel good. You can experience this sitting in a meadow or inside a mountain hut, reading, taking things apart, perhaps doing a few small balance exercises with writing. Thinking, creating, assembling and disassembling, imagining, reinventing/rediscovering oneself, and finding oneself again.

Where do literary treks take place?

There are many ways and possibilities offered by these walks through literary history. You can indulge your imagination and suit the mood of the moment.

• Authorial places (literary parks): Itineraries that retrace the real settings of novels or the homelands of great writers (e.g., Dante Alighieri’s Tuscany, Eugenio Montale’s Cinque Terre, or Beppe Fenoglio’s places in the Langhe).
• Themed trails: Organized routes where a tour or nature guide pauses the walk with stops dedicated to reading carefully selected excerpts aloud.
• Individual narrative trekking: A solo or small-group excursion accompanied by a specific book to consult during strategic breaks along the route. Stopping in quiet spots to enjoy the reading.

How do you organize a literary trek?

If you want to organize (or follow) a literary walk, here are a few simple preliminary steps to follow:

• Choose the common thread: Identify an author, a novel set in a specific area, or a theme (e.g., mountain poetry, travel literature).
• Map the itinerary: Plan an accessible route (usually easy or moderate leisure-hiking level) that allows for comfortable, scenic stops.
• Select the reading stops: Identify three or four key points along the trail (a clearing, a viewpoint, an ancient village, a spring) to stop and read an excerpt relevant to the surrounding landscape.
• Prepare the Equipment: Alongside standard trekking gear (boots, water, windbreaker), bring a physical copy of the book, an e-reader, or printed excerpts protected from moisture.

A unique experience

You can retrace trails with breathtaking views in the footsteps of Antonia Pozzi (look up the Women in Nature experience), a 1930s poet connected to the great Friulian climber Emilio Comici—a regular in Val Gardena—by a deep, intimate friendship. The trekking experience, accompanied during breaks by the verses and letters this young writer dedicated to Comici and the mountain, will lead you along the "Path of Dialogue” in Ortisei.

A unique journey through a land of pure, magnificent nature. You can hear the roar of waterfalls, streams, and brooks accompanying your steps; cross paths with wildlife; breathe the fresh air of a forest of ancient trees and the scent of flowers—all while kept in good company by a fine book.

Your heartbeat will align in harmony with the stillness of the mountain peaks, immersed in a silence that lets the mind focus purely on the pages of the book, free from distractions. Immersed in that quiet—the silence of the book in your hands.

A journey of reading and peace. An invitation to listen.

A way to stay rooted in the present. Carpe diem.

Cover image Michele Buscè Pexels

LOOK FOR EXPERIENCES OF WOMEN IN NATURE