Written by Italy & Greece Overseas Educators, Maggie and ChelseaLovely students, what a wild and wonderful 70-day journey we’ve been on. You all have absolutely rocked it every second, and we cannot express how proud and honored we are to have spent the most precious resource we have together: our time. From meeting you at JFK, we traveled from Panta Rei where we bee-kept, bonded for the first… Read More
Written by Italy & Greece Students, Izzy, Peter and Malcolm What’s New in Our Journey?
After an amazing week of student-directed travel on Aegina, the group took a train two hours outside of Athens to Akrata. The week was spent at Re-Green, a permaculture community dedicated to the regeneration of Earth. Each day, the group participated in learning activities like garden bed prepping, composting, herbal talks, mushroom talks, and much… Read More
Written by Italy & Greece Students, Kyle Chang and Arianna Wilson What’s New in Our Journey?
We have arrived on student-directed travel week! Since our last blog, we met as a group and decided on a location to travel to. Keeping the budget and all members of the group’s interests in mind, we settled on Aegina. Aegina had something for everyone- archaeological sites, hiking, beaches, scuba diving, and a small… Read More
Written by Italy & Greece Student, Ally Hudsyn What’s New in Our Journey?
Traveling to the city of Athens was an exciting adventure after exploring the peaceful towns in Crete. From the acropolis to hay markets there was plenty to explore. Walking on ancient ruins everywhere we went is an experience we will never forget. Top Three Highlights of the Week I think the most amazing thing we did this… Read More
Written by Italy & Greece Students, Peter, Izzy, and Ester What’s New in Our Journey?
This week, the group was in Matera working with local contacts from Link and B-Link. We started our week in Matera, doing a scavenger hunt to learn about the ancient city, Sassi, and what makes Matera the European Capital of Culture. The next day, the group got to explore Altamura, the City of Bread, visiting… Read More
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 EckCiao! 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 ChelseaSome 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 MeganBuongiorno 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
