The paper is about the COLOMBO 2000 project, an investigation of the metaphor of the journey. Travelling has always attracted men and has become the emblem of the spiritual, religious, cultural, intellectual and psychological journey. This image sums up the characteristics of all the legendary journeys, i.e. uniqueness, transcendentalism, the desire for conquest. The mythical journey is typically characterized by a symbolic value whereby the purpose of the journey, the conquest and the achievement of the objective increases its meaning and where the man achieves a spiritual dimension, e.g. Argonauts, Moses, Ulysses and Christopher Columbus. This spiritual journey thus creates several metaphors of heuristic value where men feel and express the burning desire to overcome human condition.