Beatrice Moricci is a Tuscan photographer who has used the time of Covid to take time for herself. She walked along the Via Francigena, traveling all over Italy from the summit of the Grand Saint Bernard Pass to the far south, Santa Maria di Leuca, 1800 km along the Via Francigena.
Beatrice has a lively voice and an accent that leaves no room for doubt about her Tuscan origins. She is a photographer, spending much of her work time in the Sienese countryside. Here, in addition to postcard landscapes, she happened to notice the signs with a yellow pilgrim of the Via Francigena.
“I always told myself, passing quickly by the pilgrim’s signs, that one day I would slowly return to explore these places that I reached and lived in a frenetic way for work. I felt a call of discovery. Last year, in 2019, I started walking some stages of the Via Francigena and immediately fell in love: This experience must be lengthened and gutted, I said to myself. “
She planned to walk the Via Francigena in the South the following year, 2020. Among all inconveniences that she could anticipate, she certainly did not imagine the pandemic. If Beatrice planned to take a few weeks off work this year, the crisis gave her a chance to take a longer break.
The season was certainly bad for a wedding photographer, as most of them were postponed. Why not transforming the crisis into an opportunity she was waiting for?
“Why only the South?”, She said to herself then. And there it was, she started her journey on 24 June on the summit of the Grand Saint Bernard Pass, ready to travel all 1800 km to the tip of the Italian boot.
A journey on foot with the head full of ideas and the heart – emotions. The heart that felt at home all along the way, thanks to warm welcome she received almost everywhere. The head, on the other hand, experienced freedom of walking (woman, alone) through woods and countryside. There were many curious, amazed, questioning looks. Everyone offered a smile, a story, something that made her trip unique. She depicted these glances and emotions along the way via her camera. Some shots are already released on her Instagram profile “Racconto d’una errante”.
She will elaborate the shots later in calm and tranquillity. It takes time to digest an experience so full of emotions, anecdotes and experiences: “I enjoyed the journey, the wandering of the mind and the look. It was a time to collect, a time to give and to exchange. Then the time will come to give it a shape. “
Beatrice Moricci is 33, she lives in San Giovanni Valdarno and photographs weddings around Tuscany and Italy, sometimes abroad, she travelled 1800 km (1400km on foot and 400km by bicycle) from 24 June to 24 August.
