First Remediate group meeting in Turin, Italy
After the warm welcome I received via Whatsapp and Twitter, I really looked forward to the Remediate group meeting on the 23rd and 24th November in Turin, Italy. I joined up with Coren and Peter on the flight from Dublin to Milan and we shared a rental car to Turin. Shortly after arriving in Milan, we noticed the smog that engulfed the city and most of the countryside. The locals told us that it was becoming a real problem and that they were hoping for strong rain and winds to clear the sky once again.
Turin itself is a lovely city with lots of very old culture, architecture and history. It was also much less crowded than expected and had a brilliant public transportation system that could get you anywhere for just €1.50.
Typically German, I arrived too early for the meeting, but soon met up with all the other ESRs and supervisors. It was great to finally meet everyone whom I only knew by Whatsapp or email. The presentations were very interesting and it was great to see so many people of different cultures and backgrounds working together towards a common goal. I also gained a bit of inspiration for my own project and hope to be working closely with some of the other ESRs in the near future. On the second day of the meeting we had the opportunity to meet some of the people from SMART GROUND and discuss possible ways of improving our respective work or even working together.
All of us were eternally grateful to Giovanna for organising the delicious group dinner and the lovely tour of the city, with the hot chocolate coffee at the end. Turin is a place to remember and revisit.
To get the most of our trip to Italy, Peter, Coren and I took an extra day to visit Acqui Terme, to the south east of Turin. It is a nice little town with the ca. 75 °C hot spring “Fontana della Bollente” and a lovely restaurant where we had an unforgettable Lunch.
All in all it was a great experience and I look forward to the next meeting in Germany. Hopefully I’ll be able to show the group some of the great things about my home country as well.