Our story
Two people.Two ways of seeing.One life on the land.
We are Ceren and Giulio: a neuroscientist-healer and a former CEO turned somatic coach. We are also a married couple who chose, more than ten years ago, to build a life around the things we believe heal people: land, animals, good food, time and attention. Dojo Bianco is where that life and our work meet.
We met at the centre of a labyrinth.
We met in Africa, at a spiritual haven called Boondocks. At its heart was a labyrinth. We still believe that walking it worked as a sacred space for us both, one that carried us toward a future we couldn't yet see.
It was there that we discovered we shared the same dream: an organic farm, horses and animals, a life lived close to the land, and a place where we could model what we believed in. A place where nature would be our ally and our teacher.
Years later, the dream became Dojo Bianco.
In 2015, in the Tuscan Maremma, we founded Dojo Bianco: an old stone farmhouse with four rooms on twenty hectares of organic land, with olive groves, paddocks and our horses. Our place of awakening.
Among the most beautiful hotels in Europe.
As a boutique hotel, Dojo Bianco was named by GEO Saison among the 100 most beautiful hotels in Europe and selected by National Geographic Traveller for its Spa & Wellness Collection in 2024.
We stopped taking ordinary bookings.
Dojo Bianco now opens only for the Immersion: one guest or one couple, the whole house given over to them. When you come, you are not handed over to a team. The two people who built this place give their working days entirely to you. The hotel is still a hotel. The idea of what a hotel can be is what has changed.
Co-founder
Dr. Ceren Akçelik Brunini
Neuroscience · Psychology · Healing
Ceren has spent her life asking one question: what gets in the way of us becoming who we really are? She has followed it into the laboratory and the healing room alike.
In the room
Ceren can hold the science of the nervous system and the subtlety of what isn't yet spoken at the same time. She notices what the body is saying before the story catches up.
Outside the room
She has been drawn to the invisible life of things since childhood. She teaches yoga, and she is as likely to be found talking quietly with a horse as reading a research paper.
- PhD in Neuroscience, Koç University
- MSc in Psychology, Lynn University, Florida
- Barbara Brennan School of Healing: graduate, Advanced Studies, Teacher Training and faculty
- Gestalt practitioner · ICF-accredited coach (ACC)
- PSEN PsychoEnergetics · psycho-oncology
- Fourteen years in practice
Co-founder
Giulio Brunini
Somatic coaching · Embodied leadership · Horses
Giulio knows from the inside what it feels like to carry a lot. For more than fifteen years he worked in senior corporate leadership, as CEO of a Universal Music / WPP company and as a Director at Yahoo! and Saatchi & Saatchi. Then he stepped away to learn how people actually change.
In the room
Giulio works with how you stand, breathe, decide and act under pressure. He brings the precision of executive coaching, without the boardroom.
Outside the room
He is a husband, a father of three, and the organic farmer who looks after the olive trees whose oil ends up on your table.
- Certified Master Somatic Coach, Strozzi Institute, where he also trains and teaches
- Newfield Network · Gestalt Center for Coaching
- Equine-guided education and horse liberty work
- Fifteen years in senior corporate leadership
- Seventeen years of somatic practice
Why two of us
Two ways of seeing, around one person.
We don't offer two versions of the same method. Ceren often follows what is psychological, relational and energetic. Giulio often enters through skilful reading of the soma, how its physiology can reveal the self and open up new possibilities.
During an Immersion, those two ways of seeing meet around one person, or one couple, and the work is shaped by what you bring, not by a programme decided in advance.
We live what we offer
Not a backdrop. Our practice.
We always knew our work would only feel true if we embodied it ourselves, living it every day in partnership with nature. The farm, the horses and the olive trees are where our own practice happens, and they are part of what we bring to you.
Serious about the work. Not serious about everything. There is room here for silence and for laughter, for long lunches, muddy boots, dogs underfoot, and conversations that carry on after a session ends. You won't be performing for anyone, and neither will we.
In her own words
“I’ll always remember Ceren’s wise words the day I arrived, allowing me time to just ‘arrive’ and ‘land’ after having travelled so long to get there. Right then, I knew that I was somewhere special, that I was in good hands and that felt like home.”Sahar
Read Sahar’s full words
“Time at Dojo Bianco is time well spent on this planet. It’s a peaceful haven for your soul. The land is blessed and the sky is vast and open to possibility. My stay was super comfy and Ceren and Giulio were perfect welcoming, warm and gracious hosts.
I’ll always remember Ceren’s wise words the day I arrived, allowing me time to just ‘arrive’ and ‘land’ after having travelled so long to get there. I still apply the same words when I travel to this day… Right then, I knew that I was somewhere special, that I was in good hands and that felt like home. Being at one with whatever it was I needed to do… The yoga classes were soul-reviving and the art and equestrian healing sessions with Giulio are something magical that words cannot describe. It made a lasting impression on me and encouraged such positive new habits that felt natural.
I arrived at the Dojo open and thirsty for something new and in search of some much needed unwinding and I left feeling peaceful, grounded, re-energized, with unforgettable memories that will last a lifetime… knowing two beautiful souls who I feel very lucky to have met… what a wish come true! Already dreaming of the next chance I’ll have to go back!”
What Dojo Bianco is, and is not
A retreatWe are a hotel, and proud of it.A clinicA home with a practice at its heart.A programme you joinA stay composed around you alone.- A hotel, reimagined.Four rooms, one guest or couple, five days.
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