From 13th to 24th of September 2022, we participated in one unique youth exchange “Hike the Entrepreneurial Dream” that started from Bologna and ended in Florence, Italy. The main point here was hiking the ancient roman path “ Via Degli Dei “ or Path of the Gods which starts from Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore and ends at Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, passing through the Apennines, the mountains that form the natural border between the regions of Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany.
In this youth exchange we went to hike the roman path Via Degli Dei and we experienced and gained some competences that helped us develop entrepreneurship ideas and focus on sustainable tourism as a mean to create new job opportunities in a sustainable context.
In this Youth Exchange 40 people with leaders participated coming from Macedonia, Italy, Estonia, Croatia, Spain, Turkey, Hungary and Bosna and Herzegovina.
This youth exchange was designed for people who love hiking and camping and mostly spend time in nature and people. We started in Bologna with some training and team building games and stayed there for two day so that we can get to know each other. On our third day we started our hiking journey from Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore, and after that for seven days we spend the time mostly hiking and preparing our tents. Aside from hiking, almost every afternoon after the hikes we had sessions to prepare our project and share our thoughts and later we always had reflections. The hike finished when we entered Florence and met together at Piazza della Signoria. After that we had a presentation with our ideas that were created with exploring Via Degli Dei.
While we were hiking we had six hiking groups so that we can hike better and talk about the different topics that were given to us so that we can get closer. Via Degli Dei is a famous hiking path so it was inevitable not to meet locals/ Italians that were also going the same way, we talked with them and also shared our project, ideas so that we can get feedback and improve our ideas.
This whole journey was full of emotions and memories, even when we were tired we still continued and didn’t stop, we started again with smile on our face.
Together we hiking 130km while sleeping in tents, creating business ideas and meeting amazing people with beautiful energies.
