Giovanni Visetti: environmental and hiking guide

Giovanni Visetti

inglese

cell. 339 6942911

With his extensive guiding, years of worldwide travel adventures, many different work experiences, diverse and accomplished athletic achievements, it is simply impossible to describe Giovanni's life "briefly".

Originally from Naples, Giovanni's formal education focussed on mathematics and economics, following which he sailed the world as a merchant marine. After living in the U.S., Giovanni returned to Italy and moved to Massa Lubrense (near Sorrento) to his ancestors' old country house.

He wrote articles for a major Neapolitan newspaper about excursions by kayak and on foot and also wrote a couple of essays (demo-ethnology and toponymy). In addition to creating both tourist and orienteering maps, he works on projects to develop the network of trails; he also teaches orienteering, cartography and hike guiding.

Besides his personal website www.giovis.com, Giovanni created and updates www.meditflora.com (with about 2000 photos of over 350 species of Mediterranean flowers and plants) and www.capriorchids.com (dedicated just to the local wild orchids).

BCT catalog - tour leader since 1998

Guiding the The Amalfi Coast and the Isle of Capri and Sicily and her Radiant Islands tours, Giovanni welcomes walkers to his homeland.

Responsible for marking more than 100km of trails in the Massa Lubrense region, Giovanni is passionate about the Amalfi coast and its diverse and extensive trails. With the moderate to challenging terrain of the Amalfi region and Sicily, Giovanni knows that the only true way to explore these sections of Italy is to get off the roads and onto the hillside pathways.

Country Walkers guide since 1999

(from Country Walkers website & catalog)

...... But there is another side to the Amalfi Peninsula. Away from the road is a network of footpaths which thread through the steep limestone peaks of the peninsula’s spine. Some are marked .... others can be only found by searching for the darker vein of a track on a hillside. A number of these paths have been linked together to form an eight-day walk from one end of the peninsula to the other. The route is identified by red and white dashes painted on trees and rocks.

Giovanni Visetti knows this route better than most. So detailed is Visetti's knowledge of Massa Lubrense that the local council recently asked him to compile a catalogue and map of public footpaths.

We met Visetti at the village of Colli di Fontanelle. He is fit, intense and knowledgeable. During a long day, we walked the final section on a succession of footpaths which wove downwards towards the rocks of Punta Campanella. The path stayed high, straying over an occasional summit which provided views north to Naples and the cone of Vesuvius, and south across the Bay of Salerno. ......

from the article Out on a limb - World Magazine June 1991 - by Nicholas Crane - photo by Peter Inglis