Written by Italy & Greece Students, Pepper Travers and Aidan Stier What’s New in Our Journey? Since we last wrote a blog post, we’ve been to Rome! We visited all the major sights: the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps. Our hotel was a monastery very close to the Vatican, so just a short walk brought us to St. Peter’s Basilica. Top Three Highlights of the … Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Student, Hudsyn Toppenberg What’s New in Our Journey? The past week has been full of incredible experiences in unlikely places. The group traveled by train to a quaint campsite called Paladini, nestled beautifully in the region of Garfagnana. It was quite an adjustment for the group to go from a big and bustling city like Florence to a rustic campsite, and it definitely took some… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Students, Ally and Malcom What’s New in Our Journey? Welcome back! We just finished our trek on the Via Francigena, visiting our first two cities, Florence and Siena. The group enjoyed the beautiful scenery along the trek and admired the historic architecture in both cities. Along the way, we had the chance to bake bread, try medieval sword fighting, and visit the world’s best gelato… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Students, Hudsyn and Allie What’s New in Our Journey? We kicked off our journey at Panta Rei! It’s a beautiful community where we learned useful Italian phrases and how to live more sustainably within our surroundings. Building a community was a new experience for all of us—new people, a new environment. A strong community requires trust, effort, and leadership. We faced challenges, overcame our addiction… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Overseas Educator, Chelsea Van Eck Ciao! After months of preparing for this day, I’m ecstatic to say the group has successfully arrived at our first stop in Italy, Panta Rei! It’s been an eventful 48 hours as we traversed planes, trains, and buses to arrive at our destination and settle into a new space and community. To paint a picture of what these first few… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Overseas Educators, Maggie and Chelsea Some interesting tidbits about your leaders: Maggie calls both Colorado and Scotland home and is passionate about climbing, mountain biking, climate justice, and mental health advocacy. Chelsea, a Midwest native, has called Korea, D.C., Wisconsin, and Florida home. She enjoys spending time with her nieces and nephews, going on nature walks, and learning people’s stories as she travels. They both… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Overseas Educators, Ariana and Megan Ciao for Now! It’s hard to believe, but the Terra group is on their last night in Athens! Did we really just do all that we did? Whatever motivated each student to step on that plane on March 5th and fly to a foreign country with complete strangers, we applaud them! It takes courage to do what others aren’t doing-… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Overseas Students, Ben Torregiani & Stavroula Skandalakis This week the Terra 2024 group went to Matera, a town carved out of stone. We started the week by visiting a school where we would be teaching kindergarten students English. In the afternoon, we made pasta in a house carved into the mountain and ate it with a view of the Sassi di Matera. The next day,… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Overseas Students, Eden Tropepe and Kian Murray This past week the Carpe Diem Terra group went to Rome and experienced the ancient wonders of Italy. We started our time off visiting the Vatican and seeing the Pope’s inspirational message to 1.4 billion Catholics for Easter. We then had some time to explore the city with a walking tour through the historic area. On our last… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Overseas Students, Sydney and Logan  A few weeks back, we did part of the Via Francigena! We walked for 4 days and had great weather throughout! Lauren was our guide through it all, she was amazing! We met a nice gentleman on the first day who stopped us and talked about how he hosted hikers doing the trek! We stopped at various small towns along… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Overseas Students, Ryan Chun & Julia Rivard We went to Florence (Firenze) and made ourselves at home for a few days! We climbed the Duomo Bell Tower, explored the Palazzo Vecchio, and did a scavenger hunt of different city attractions, among other things. We also started our trek to Siena on the Via Francigena! Top Highlights of the Week: 🍨 Gelato Galore: Gelato, gelato, and… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Overseas Educator, Ariana Agrios The Terra group is off and running! We landed in Rome on Wednesday and made our way to Passignano Sul Trasimeno where we’re staying at Panta Rei, a sustainable living community in the hills of Umbria. This week we’ve enjoyed hiking to and from town, exploring the beautiful landscape, making pizza and pasta from scratch, and getting to know each other… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Overseas Educators, Ariana and Megan Buongiorno from the Terra Overseas Educators! Ariana and Megan have enjoyed connecting with each of you over this past week in preparation for our European adventure, and we hope you’re as excited as we are that we’ll soon be on our way to Roma! Bellissimo! A few fun facts about your fearless leaders: Irish Dancing Bookworm and Cat Lover Ariana… Read More

  Written by Italy & Greece Overseas Educators, Meg & Mary And that’s a wrap! The Terra group has officially come to the end of its journey. This past week we stayed at Re-green, an amazing village nestled in the mountains of Akrata. The volunteers and village members that live there practice and promote permaculture principles, and were generous enough to let us into their community for a week. Our… Read More

  Written by Italy & Greece Student, Macey T. This past week our group got to spend time on the beautiful island of Aegina!🌴Our wonderful group leaders on Crete, Elizabeth and Liam, booked a picturesque 3 story house, right on the ocean. The weather was on our side as well, allowing us to swim almost everyday! It truly was a little patch of paradise. Aegina is very famous for pistachios,… Read More

  Written by Italy & Greece Students, Elizabeth R. & Liam S. We arrived on Crete! Over the past ten days, we spent time in a small village on Eastern Crete! We started off the week with Greek language and culture lessons from our teacher Manolis. We learned the essentials of the language as well as Greek history and Greek dancing, which we all enjoyed! Then Carly taught us all… Read More

  Written by Italy & Greece Students, Kate T. and Lillian A. Since the last update, the Terra group has completed our time in Matera and travelled to Greece! In a farm outside of Matera we were tasked with designing and painting recycled fridges to turn them into “book fridges” as a sort of lending library for a nearby town, Altamura. With the help of local contacts, at the end… Read More

  Written by Italy & Greece Students, Zane & Justin We arrived in Rome after a four-hour FlixBus ride from Siena and split off into two groups after sending our bags to the monastery we’re staying at by taxi. One group walked an hour to the monastery and got Chinese food, and the other took the metro and got some Italian food. The next day we had lunch at a… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Students, Lillybeth & Amery Since the last blog post we have done and seen a LOT. It was the week of our trek so we started in Gambassi Terme where we met Luca, who showed us around his family’s bakery and taught us to make a delicious little bread snack! We stayed the night at a monastery and started our trek in the morning. Lauren,… Read More

Written by Italy & Greece Students, Macey T. & Grace N. For the last week, we’ve been at a farm called Paladini in the mountains of Garfagnana. It’s a beautiful place and it was so nice to get back to nature after a busy week in Florence. There were other volunteers there from programs like Workaway, as well as the owner Colm and his family. There were different chores we… Read More