This Italian Evening Ritual Has Major Health Benefits. Here's Why You Should Try It.

The "passaggiata" is a simple tradition with a multitude of benefits for your well-being.

If you travel to Italy, particularly its less touristy areas and smaller villages, you may notice a surprising amount of foot traffic in the evenings. This isn’t simply because Italians tend to go to bed late, after a leisurely-paced dinner comprising multiple courses (although that’s also custom).

Many Italians venture outside to partake in the traditional passeggiata, or evening stroll. (In Spain, a similar practice is known as el paseo.) For this ritual, the point isn’t to get from point A to point B, burn calories or accumulate daily steps ― though those may be secondary effects ― but rather to see and be seen as part of the fabric of the local community.

When Chloe Yelena Miller lived in Italy with her husband and child, she told HuffPost, “We’d see groups of families (with kids, adults and older adults) strolling through the town, stopping for a gelato or pastry, looking in the shop windows and generally being together in multi-generational groups. It was usually busiest when the weather was good or on the weekend. It was always particularly lovely under the Christmas lights.”

Miller, who now resides in Washington, D.C., remarked upon the degree of multigenerational harmony she observed among those who gathered at this hour in Florence’s Piazza Savonarola, where a kiosk sells snacks until 1:30 a.m. When the family went out around 9 p.m., Miller said, “Our child, then 4 and not yet speaking Italian, would just run around with other kids in the piazza kicking a soccer ball.”

“When we first got there, he’d pick the ball up with his hands. Instead of getting mad, the big kids would show him how to kick it, and they’d all run around the piazza together. I remember noticing that older folks would kick it back to the kids (never getting mad if the ball hit them or anything) and so would various groups of teenagers.”