by Giovanni Cafiero, President of Aeneas Route Association
On behalf of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe (EPA), it is my pleasure to inform you that at its 28-29 April 2021 meeting, the EPA Governing Board unanimously decided to award to “Aeneas Route” the Certification “Cultural Route of the Council of Europe”.
This is the beginning of the letter from the DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF DEMOCRACY – EPA of the Council of Europe that Stefano Dominioni addressed to the Aeneas Route Association on 20 May 2021. One year has therefore passed since the recognition of the Aeneas Route as a new Council of Europe itinerary.
We prepared the candidature in 2020 and gained recognition in 2021 during a long period of crisis due to the pandemic. A period in which many of our loved ones passed away, especially the elderly, when the possibilities to travel and for people to meet one another were practically zero , where the scope for artistic and cultural exchanges was almost wiped out. Only exiles from wars and poverty continued to move between the Mediterranean and Europe in search of a ‘new city’ to settle in, hoping to be welcomed.
If we reflect on it, Aeneas’s Route, an itinerary stemming from Virgil’s epic poem written around 21 BC, contains a proposal, a perspective of civilisation and hope that are still relevant today:
Solidarity between generations, with the father Anchises, Aeneas and the young Ascanius travelling together after their escape from a burnt and destroyed Troy;
Awareness of the wealth of values and experiences specific to the elderly: Anchises the guardian of values and spiritual guide of Aeneas on his journey, even after death in the encounter in the underworld with Aeneas descending from Lake Avernus near Cumae, the first Greek city in Italy (7th century BC);
Moral obligation and generosity, in thinking of a future for the younger generations, for Ascanius;
The sense of nature as something sacred and prodigious;
Welcoming those who find themselves with refugee status as something that pertains to the human condition and cannot be denied (Dido is the most shining and dramatic example);
Hope as a central and precious sentiment for man in his choice to leave and not to abandon himself to despair and the sterile and destructive desire for revenge that Creusa, Ascanius’ mother, instils in Aeneas.
It is also in the name of these values and of the love for the Mediterranean as a cradle of civilisation, of meeting and blending as a central factor in the progress of mankind, of culture as a bridge between communities, that the Aeneas Route proposes to expand collaboration activities to relaunch sustainable tourism that unites without plundering territories, to resume the cultural exchanges that bring closer together communities and new generations of Europeans from countries bordering the Mediterranean, which in turn is a place of exchange from the East and the South of the world with Europe.
We appeal to the entire international network of our Cultural Route: the Aeneas Route spreads this message and is making its contribution by promoting projects and meetings within the framework of the Route certified by the Council of Europe and its values.
We aim to realise new international meetings:
We will be in Edremit, Turkey on 29 June for the final meeting of the European project ‘Steps of Aeneas’.
We will be in Cumae and the Phlegraean Fields in the metropolitan area of Naples from 1 to 5 September 2022 for the second edition of the International Aeneas Route Festival, with Albania and the UNESCO site of Butrint as guest of honour.
We will be in Chania on the island of Crete from 5 to 7 October 2020 for the Annual Meeting of European Cultural Routes, organised by the Ministries of Culture and Tourism of Greece together with the Institute of Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe
We plan to organise with the Municipality of Mykonos and the Cyclades Ephorate a meeting in 2023 under the banner of cultural tourism in the Mediterranean and the value of archaeology as a witness to civilisations and historical events that can still teach us a lot.
We want to take the Message of Aeneas’ Route across the Channel to remember the contribution of the Mediterranean universe, from York to London, reviving the message of Nobel Prize-winning poet T.S. Eliot who in 1944 saw represented in the Aeneid the themes of hope beyond the destruction of the Second World War and defined Virgil as the poet of Europe.
We want to honour with new initiatives the relationship of closeness and friendship with Tunisia and the figure of Dido, mythical founder of Carthage.
The Aeneas Route Association has also initiated the project of a story in images of the entire itinerary. A documentary film narrating the entire itinerary and specific promotional videos for the sites of the Aeneas Route, so that they can tell their stories and promote themselves through culture, welcoming a sustainable cultural tourism that will ensure the interest of European and international visitors on a stable basis throughout the year, also with specific cultural events, without forgetting the importance of raising the awareness of their own communities about the importance of preserving a cultural heritage of universal value.
The Aeneid, the epic tale of Aeneas’s voyage written by Virgil that inspires Aeneas’ Route, links up with the great Homeric poems, enriching the myth with new focuses and values: we want to offer them in a contemporary narrative for the needs of regeneration, hope, joy still harboured and necessary for the human soul today, and preserved in the ‘imaginary landscape’ of the Mediterranean universe.
For Aeneas’ Route, for peace in Europe and beyond Europe, for the resumption of cultural exchanges and tourism as a bridge between communities!