Erasmus 2024 – Going to Piacenza

“Environment and History: How were the neighboring cities effected by the rivers Rhine and Po throughout the time?” This was the key question for 12 german students and their italian hosts in Piacenza for one week.

After a 12 hour drive by bus through Germany, Switzerland and Italy we finally arrived in Piacenza. Everyone was really excited to meet their exchange students. Some of us met new ones and were even more excited.

 The week in Piacenza was fully planned by the teachers and we couldn’t wait to spend our time with our new friends and the families.

On the first day we played a few games to get to know each other again. We were also divided into groups to work on history padlets. We all had different interests and hobbies and it was a good opportunity to mix all these interests with people of our age. The fact that united us all was being interested in history and working together in this project.

During the week we visited a lot of cities like Piacenza, Milan and Calendasco. We walked through Piacenza and learned about how it was built by the Romans, about the important buildings and the river Po.

On another day we drove to the medieval town of Calendasco and visited a place at the river were all the pilgrims of the past from all over the world crossed the river. The old ferryman told us a lot of the work he does and that he has brought people over the river for a lot of years. It was really impressive and we all had a lot of fun together. We also visited an old castle in Calendasco where we had a guided tour. Each group had to create an own tour through the castle to work on their presentations or films.

For the most students Milan was probably the highlight. We visited the city on our last day in Italy and everybody was sad that this week had passed so fast. In Milan we heard a few presentations about the old buildings there which the Italian students prepared for us and afterwards went through the city on our own. Some of us went shopping while the others went to visit the Duomo, Milans well-known cathedral. We all grew together as an international group of students and nobody was left out.

On the last evening we all met again in Piacenza and had a pizza together with all our teachers to recapitulate the week and our impressions. Everyone shared their thoughts and we talked a lot. We decided to see each other again in summer and went for a last drink to a bar.  

On the departure everyone was really sad and we didn’t even want to enter the bus and go back to Germany because this week was so full of beautiful experiences and interesting activities. Taking part in this exchange programme made me realize that going to another country, learning a lot about the history there and visiting new people is nearly the best thing you can do as a student. It is a really social and enriching event and I recommend it to everyone. Making new friends has never been so easy and uncomplicated like in this situation because everyone wanted make this week as wonderful as possible. And we actually nailed it.

von Liliana Stanojevic (9e)