In July, we embark on a journey of discovery through the Minett UNESCO Biosphere. We will follow the Minett-Trail, looking at the landscape, the human influence on the Minett and the richness that this former industrial area has to offer from a different perspective.

(c) Marc Weis

“Rocklines – A Journey Through Minett, The Sea Of Red Rocks” will be a geopoetic journey with Robert Weis from the ‘natur musée’ and the Italian author and geopoet Davide Sapienza.

Robert Weis is a native to the Minett region. Robert developed a passion for the fossils and rocks of the area from a very young age. A former winner of the Young Scientists Competition, he has been working since 2002 at the National Museum of Natural History in Luxembourg as manager of the palaeontological collections and researcher specialising in Jurassic marine invertebrates.

He is the author of about thirty scientific publications on the taxonomy and paleogeography of fossil cephalopods. More recently, the promotion and protection of the geological heritage has become one of his priorities. He regularly organises field trips to introduce the public to the landscape and to interpret the pages of the earth’s book.

Besides his professional commitment, Robert Weis has always been attracted by different forms of artistic expression. With the association ‘Panoplie’ he organised about fifty concerts in Luxembourg and the Greater Region between 2005 and 2010. He is also the founder of the independent label ‘Pocket Heaven Records’ and for many years co-hosted the show ‘Sentier Sonori’ on Radio Ara.

Together with the Italian author Davide S. Sapienza, he organised and guided geopoetic and literary walks in the Mullerthal and Luxembourg City. His taste for travel and discovery led him to Japan several times, trips whose notebooks are regularly published on his personal blog.

(c) Renato Zanotti

Davide Sapienza has been working in the publishing world since 1984, his “first life” was devoted to music with books, translating classical authors, journalism, radio and national television programmes. During these years he also worked extensively with Native American poets such as Lance Henson and John Trudell, who helped him shape a poetic vision related to Mother Earth.

From 1998 onwards, he devoted himself to travel and exploration and, of course, shaped his particular style. He then resurfaced in public in 2004 with his travelogue, the highly acclaimed I Diari di Rubha Hunish (which was the main event of the Bruce Chatwin Prize in the same year). This book, which has become an influential cult text for many new writers, began a literary cycle sealed in 2019 with Il Geopoeta. Avventure Nelle Terre Della Percezione.

In 2008 he co-wrote the ground-breaking and thought-provoking documentary on the First World War, with director Enrico Verra, Scemi di Guerra (The Fools of War). In 2014, together with geographer, explorer and author Franco Michieli, he completed a three-year fieldwork for ERSAF (the Lombardy Regional Institute for Forests and Agriculture), a long walking study through the central Alps of Valcamonica, creating a 70 km long trail, after exploring more than 1,000 km of paths, ancient and lost roads, to connect the mountain farms of this region. The Via Dei Silter (the name of the path and the geopoetic guide), has been elected one of Italy’s best new paths and included in the book Cammina Italia (also distributed by IlSole24Ore) in 2020.

Davide works on the Bergamo edition of the Corriere della Sera. He is currently working on a project for Bodo2024, European Capital of Culture.

In July, Robert Weis and Davide Sapienza will explore the Minett UNESCO Biosphere together. The result of their journey, of their meetings with citizens, researchers and decision-makers and of their discoveries will then be compiled by Davide Sapienza and Robert Weis and published in the form of a geopoetic travel diary in 2022, the year in which Esch and the entire Pro-Sud region, forming the Minett UNESCO Biosphere, will be European Capital of Culture.

To complete the image on Davide Sapienza we suggest you discover this video in which the Italian author presents himself: