Saturday 10th December 2016
According to the programme arranged by the Italian team all national teams had to arrive to Palermo of Sicily. Depending on our arrival time some of us had time for a tour downtown which was very spectacular due to the festive period. We stayed overnight in a central hotel and by sharing some rooms first acquaintances were made.
Sunday 11th December 2016
The day was full of activities in Palermo to get acquainted with its long history. First, we visited the Zisa castle and we were impressed by its unique Arab-Norman architecture. Afterwards, we went to the Norman palace where apart from admiring its Medieval facade we had the chance to visit its interior with the royal chapel Capella Palatina, elaborately decorated with mosaics depicting biblical scenes, being the highlight of our visit. Then we headed to the city center passing on our way from the cathedral, the theater Massimo and the Baroque square: Quattro Canti. After lunch, with the majority of us enjoying an original Italian pizza, we went to the hill of Monreale to enjoy the view and to visit the splendid cathedral. In the afternoon we departed for Milazzo, a town in North East coast of Sicily where the Italian school is located. After a long journey of almost three hours by private bus, we arrived in Milazzo, where Italian families were expecting our students. As it is customary in our partnership, during the meeting the students were hosted in local families while the teachers stayed in a hotel.
Monday 12th December 2016
In the morning all participants, students and teachers, gathered at the Italian School: I.T.E.T. L.da Vinci Milazzo a vocational high school with approximately 800 students offering specialization in 7 areas: Management - Economics - Marketing, Business & Information Systems, Tourism, Informatics & Telecommunications, Design of Buildings and Structured Environment, Graphics and Communications, and Marine Sciences. We were welcomed by school director Stefania Scolaro, the project coordinator Gianfranco Minniti and all the members of the Italian Erasmus team. We were guided to the school and we were impressed by the numerous well-equipped computer labs used in all courses.
Then we went to a nearby co-operative agricultural enterprise and they briefed us about the advantages of such as cooperation as well as their struggle to manage democratically their association. We realized that the aim of such an association is for its members to increase their production and their incomes by having a better link with finance, agricultural inputs, information, and output markets. Cooperatives enable individuals to achieve goals that they may not otherwise be able to achieve by themselves. We were given examples of the ways that cooperatives help farmers benefit from economies of scale such as lowering their costs for storage and transport.
In the afternoon we returned to the school for a presentation focusing on Logistics as a key aspect of a business. Dr Simone Campanella presented us the fundamentals of logistics. His presentation was not just theoretical but he was giving examples from his own business. As a founder of a third-party logistics enterprise specializing in providing storage and transport of agricultural products between Sicily and Europe he gave us “inside information” on how to run a logistic company.
Tuesday 13th December 2016
We went by private bus to the nearby city: Barcellona. There, we had a very interesting visit to a fruit processing plant specializing in producing juice, smoothie and candied fruit. They guided us at their premises and showed us the production line for each product.
At noon we returned to the Italian school where, after tasting Italian street food: arancini, pidoni, calzoni and mozzarelle in carozza, we had the presentations that each partner prepared. Since the topic of our meeting in Milazzo was logistics, according to the agenda of our partnership we had to study and present a topic related to logistics. Croats studied and presented about the different types of transportation according to products, Portuguese for the use of containers in the transport sector, Lithuanians for the means of transportation now and in the past, Poles for the technologies of the future transport, Greeks for the food technology specifications that has to be considered at food logistics and Germans for pictograms as mandatory labels for packing. The presentations are available here at the twinspace of our project.
Then the teachers had a meeting to review and plan the future assignments of our collaboration while students were divided into groups and participated in a web site creation workshop. Each team was arranged to make a website on a different platform so that different options could be tested.
Late in the afternoon the students returned to their hosting families, while the teachers, despite the bitter cold, walked along the scenic promenade at the seafront of Milazzo.
Wednesday 14th December 2016
Day-long excursion at the Eolian islands. We met early in the morning at the port of Milazzo and boarded on a hydrofoil to the Aeolian Islands. First, we visited Vulcano Island and we trekked from the harbour up to its volcano. Many of us managed to reach the top where we took unique photos of the crater and the magnificent view of the surrounding landscape.
A few hours later we boarded again on a hydrofoil and we went to the island of Lipari. Italian team had arranged for us to go on a tour of the island so that we see the different business activities practiced by its inhabitants. We found out that they have 3 main occupations: a) in tourism by taking advantage of the idyllic landscape, b) in agriculture by cultivating the fertile volcanic soil and c) in mining due to geological formations of pumice and obsidian. This first-hand experience of the creative ideas the inhabitants of the Eolian islands had was quite inspiring to us!
Our daily programme was over in the evening when we returned back to Milazzo's harbor.
Thursday 15th December 2016
Day-long excursion. We departed by private bus heading east toward mt Etna. On our way there were a lot of vineyards where, due to the volcanic soil rich in metallic elements, is produced the famous wine with protected designation of origin "Etna". We arrived at Nicolosi located at 1920m and from there we took a cable car to reach 2500m on the slopes of the mountain. The landscape was full of snow so we enjoyed playing snowball but it was covered in clouds thus obscuring the wonderful views we were expecting.
Then we visited Taormina, the cosmopolitan resort of Sicily where we visited the ancient Greek theater with the magnificent view to the coast of Gardini Naxos. Although it was wintertime and very chilly outside we were surprised to see that all the shops along the main street Corso Umberto were open waiting for customers. We thought that such towns were “summer destinations” destined to be abandoned during wintertime. We addressed our questions to the local businessmen who “revealed” their secret of success being the efforts of the local trade association in collaboration with the local authorities to promote Taormina also as winter destination.
In the evening we returned to Milazzo, another day of this wonderful program was over.
Friday 16th December 2016
In the morning students went to the Italian school to participate at a workshop organized for them to conclude the web pages that they had started on Tuesday. Due to a technical problem with the internet connection they were not able to finish their task so there was change of plans. They made presentations for their experiences during the week they spent in Italy. Their presentations are available here at the meeting review section of our twinspace. At noon, all the participants met at the school's assembly hall. First, we had the presentations of the students. Then, there was a presentation of the Greek team about the website of our partnership. The Greek team had prepared 3 different draft versions of the website. They presented these three versions and gave the partners the opportunity to choose which one they prefer better and to make suggestions on how to improve it. The draft webpages proposed were:
http://erasmusapples.webs.com/
http://erasmusapples.weebly.com
http://erasmusapples.wixsite.com/erasmus
The last of them was eventually chosen so this is the one that someone may see in its full version enriched with all the information in regards to our partnership.
Then, after filling in the typical evaluation sheets of the meeting, we had the closing ceremony where our Italian organizers distributed our certificates of attendance as well as Christmas presents! After the ceremony there a special treat for us with homemade food offered by Italian school students' families. In the end, while thanking our Italian hosts for their warm hospitality and saying goodbye one another, there were some rather emotional moments.
Saturday 17th December 2016
On this day all the teams travelled back to their countries. The trip to Italy was indeed a wonderful experience! According to the agenda of our project we acquired new knowledge in regards to enterprises focused to handling their logistics. We also had the opportunity to interact with teachers and pupils from other European countries and to make new friends.
Authors: Orfeas Kontogeorgos, Tatiana Tourkogianni, Bill Mentzinis, Maria Bifsa.
Supervising teachers: Koralia Petrocheilou, Dimitra Rimpa, Eleni Zalavra.