An excursus along the 65 years of a scientific activity mostly dedicated to Nuclear Physics is presented. The overwiew goes back to the first experiments on radioactivity and nuclear decays employing extensively the scintillation spectometry (Turin, Amsterdam, 1952–1957) and to the foundation of the experimental Nuclear Spectrscopy in Italy starting from the systematic researches in Naples in the ’60s of the last century. The extension to Florence and Padua and to the just founded Legnaro Laboratory which could become in the ’70s a national center for nuclear physics research with the institution by the INFN of the LNL (Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro) is outlined. The domain of the research with particular emphasis on the spectroscopy of 1f_7/2 nuclei as well as the international collaborations with Amsterdam, Orsay, Munich groups is underlined. The evolution following the advent of heavy-ion accelerators and of the new more performant gamma-ray detectors, together with the invented in-beam spectroscopy is accounted for in describing the important achievements in this field of that collaboration. A report is presented about the further developments in Italy with the installation at the LNL of the XTU Tandem, the first national heavy-ion accelerator, opening also in Italy a large area of investigation including the advent of other facilities (LNS with a second Tandem accelerator; the coupling of the two Tandems with the superconducting Cyclotron at LNS and LINAC at LNL, respectively The extension to new areas of research and to new collaborations are mentioned. Finally the promotion of and the participation to the enterprises concerning nuclear physics programs at CERN in the frame of large national and international collaborations concerning experiments with anti-nucleons at LEAR (OBELIX) and relativistic heavy ions at the SPS and at the LHC (ALICE) are pointed out shedding some light on the most interesting results. Conclusions about the different steps of a long journey with physics are drawn.