The Swiss & French geographer Claude Raffestin died, aged 89, on 25th September 2025, in Turin, Italy. In his last book written with his spouse Mercedes Bresso, published in 2021, they quoted an extract from the novel Memoirs of Hadrien by Marguerite Yourcenar. The original French reads: « J’envie ceux qui réussiront à faire le tour des deux cent cinquante mille stades grecs si bien calculés par Ératosthène, et dont le parcours nous ramènerait à notre point de départ. Je m’imaginais prenant la simple décision de continuer à aller de l’avant, sur la piste qui déjà remplaçait nos routes. Je jouais avec cette idée… ». The Emperor Hadrian, by then imagined as a very old man, longs to travel - as other will do in the future - around the two hundred and fifty thousand Greek stadia of the Earth, ably calculated at the time by Eratosthenes. This dream of a voyage that brought travellers back to their point of departure captured the imagination. In fancy, Hadrian takes the simple decision of going on, this time on the mere path to which the road had given way. As an old man himself, Claude Raffestin dreamed of doing the same.