Full throttle through Europe: a journal of the 2024 Youth4Regions Train trip

This is the story of the extraordinary trip that brought the three winners of the Megalizzi-Niedzielski Prize 2023 from Venice to Malaga, on a train journey across Italy, France, and Spain. The characters? Us, Malia Kounkou, a French video journalist; Sara Fačko, a Croatian former radio journalist; and Olena Martyniuk, a journalist from Ukraine, writing this diary. The mission? Traversing Europe by train and raising awareness about EU-funded projects on our route. The unofficial mission? Visiting amazing cities, trying delicious local cuisine, and having fun.  

Venice

The trip starts in the Most Serene city, where Youth4Regions alumnae – Sofia and Clara – show us around. We marvel at the mirage of water and stone that is Venice and learn Zen-like composure swimming in the human sea of tourists. To top off this experience, we explore the canals on a gondola, propelled by a gondolier who was not really in the mood to sing.

In Venice, we also visit Fablab Venice, an EU-funded laboratory for digital fabrication and social innovation. At Fablab, surrounded by 3D models of Venetian architecture, we are shown how to make building material out of goat's hair, clay, and cement. Fablab aims to reduce the negative impact of construction on the environment by creating more ecological solutions. With 3D glasses on, Malia and I saw an ancient Italian cathedral in VR technology—this form of heritage preservation was inspired by the COVID pandemic lockdowns.

In Venice we truly begin our train journey, puzzled but undeterred by the many staircases in Italian train stations and properly coming together as a group while dragging around our heavy luggage. Gazing through the train window, we are spellbound by the landscape of the Italian countryside, almost feeling like in a 50s movie.

Turin

Arrived in Turin, we visit Ex Incet, an EU-funded innovation centre. EX-Incet is in a former industrial area that once housed a major electrical cable manufacturing plant, active from the late 1800s until 1968. This part of Turin had fallen into disrepair, exposing the youth to substance abuse. Ex Incet helps school dropouts and wayward youth to seek professional advice, incubating the early stages of their projects and small businesses free of charge. Ex Incet also offers plastic recycling and woodworking workshops, guiding any young person through the implementation of their ideas.

In Turin, Mattia Gisola, another Youth4Regions alumnus, guides us through the city's bookstores and famed chocolate shops. During our stay, we catch a glimpse of the Flowers Festival, no flowers but a lively rap concert instead. The next morning, we board the train to our next stop. Little did we know, our real adventures were about to begin…

Trouble with trains

We first take a train to Oulx-Cesana-Claviere-Sestriere, then a bus through a fairytale alpine landscape to the next train station. After waiting a few hours, we realise we need to take two more trains to reach our destination. At risk of being stranded at night in the middle of nowhere, we hop on the last train and find a but to Lyon thanks to Malia’s problem-solving skills. We finally collapse at our hotel at 2 am after this adventure. Lesson learned: check your tickets carefully before venturing on border crossings.

Lyon

In the city of Saint-Exupéry, we board Dario Malcuit’s boat! This boat, the Evoli is part of the EU-funded Evofluv projects: an urban river freight logistics company created by Dario Malcuit in 2021. This project features the only electric boat in Lyon, with a carrying capacity of 175 tonnes of cargo. The boat also decomposes 86 m³ of wastewater from cruise ships, ferrying it to the wastewater treatment plant.

Our visit continues in the city, losing ourselves amidst books and old records and visiting the local cat café, a much-anticipated highlight of our trip. In the evening, we marvel at the reflection of fireworks on the Rhône River at the Saône festival.

Perpignan

A miscalculated itinerary from the hotel to the train station makes us miss our next train. We still make it to Perpignan, enjoying the sightseeing in the Moorish quarter where we are welcomed by someone suddenly throwing us a bucket of rubbish. Strange, gross, but luckily not fatal.

True to our mission, the next day we visit the E2C Perpignan project. It's one of the 13 Second Chance Schools in the EU, which allows motivated young people without diplomas or vocational qualifications to attend school for a second time. Here, youngsters between the ages of 16 and 25 are cared for by professional psychologists, counselors, and teachers. The initiative even organises trips to other countries (one of the students of the E2C went to Morocco).

We cannot leave without visiting the seaside and, despite our desire to stay, we are already off to Spain the following day.

Barcelona

"There is a possibility that your children will see poisonous oceans in the future," said Reimund Fickert calmly, gazing at the waves. He is the director of Business Development and Communication at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB). The huge EU-funded research facility brings together some of the best minds in the world. The PRBB resembles a giant glass anthill: in complete openness, any of the scientists there can access documents or offices. The super-important fridges containing super-important things are covered in stickers from the movie Inside Out – “anger”, “joy”, and “disgust”, nicely paired to the “hazardous material” stickers. Sensors, mechanisms, and various devices are all connected in a strange symphony. And the lunch break comes with options, like a yoga session or discussing the end of the world.

In the city we admire Gaudi’s architecture. His buildings look like giant sandcastles, Parc Güell reminding something out of Alice in Wonderland: not one boring straight line in sight and plenty of colors everywhere. Without booked tickets, we settle for only staring at the Sagrada Familia and its exterior out of a Tim Burton movie.

About town, we learn of a book presentation by war reporter Maite Carasco and Malia and I decide to go, undeterred by our non-existent command of Spanish. We are inspired by the presentation all the same, enough to buy Carasco’s book in Spanish and download Duolingo.

Madrid

As soon as we step off the train in Madrid we are enveloped by a blanket of heat. In the streets, people hop from shade to shade, walking like the Fremen from Dune. In the evening, we treat ourselves to the “Emociones” show at the Flamenco theatre: Spanish guitars, heels, and castanets as dancers take the scene; mantillas and tassels—the works!

In the scorching heat of Madrid, the cool corridors of our next visit offer some respite. Funded with more than 320 million euros from the EU, the “12 October” Hospital is one of the ten best public hospitals in Spain. Brand new, the hospital is one of the largest, most complex construction projects ever undertaken in Spain. In addition to the latest equipment, the hospital also includes nearly 5,000 square meters dedicated to green terraces and therapeutic gardens. On its top floor, patients and visitors can enojoy a terrace overlooking Madrid’s skyline. Daniel Santos Beneit, our guide, quietly explains that when people in treatment are forced to live the same day every day, having at least a little peace is incredibly important.

Malaga

We ride to Malaga on the last train of our trip. At our destination Nieves and Montse from the Málaga City Council take us to discover the city. We visit Malaga’s central district, a neighborhood formerly notorious for prostitution and black-market dealings that seems to have shed its old skin thanks to EU funding and is now famous for subcultures and graffiti instead. We visit Quartier Tattoo, and the next day, Sara is already getting a flower tattoo on her arm to remember Malaga.

At the Mariposa Hotel, we visit a vertical garden with a floral ecosystem counting more than 3000 plants from more than 15 species. Thanks to an EU grant, BioAzul developed a circular irrigation system fed by the hotel’s showers wastewater. This way, the building has a perfect grain-feeding ecosystem that is home to birds and insects.

Throughout our trip, tasting local food was as important as anything else, and in Malaga, we taste the famed Spanish tortilla, its variants, and tapas. The verdict: we enjoyed Spanish cuisine. We unexpectedly end the evening at a Spanish musical starring Antonio Banderas at La Alameda Theatre.

We end our trip thoroughly in love with the Spanish language, each of us going home with our eyes full of this amazing experience, and our bags full of souvenirs and food, hoping not to start nibbling at it on the long way home. Sara was already missing Croatia, the beauty salon she owns, and the children she teaches English to. Malia, who works in Canada, was nominated for a prestigious journalism prize, and I understood something about myself. I want to keep writing. The world is huge and interesting, it pulsates with hundreds of stories, and I want to hear and report as many of them as possible.

On the way home, the Russians bombed the Okhmadyt Center for children with cancer in Kyiv. I will keep reporting what I see and hear, whether it be war or the EU-funded projects we visited throughout this trip. I added a few more books to my wishlist and decided to revive my French and start learning Spanish. I subscribed to the New Yorker and decided that one day, after the war, I want to work there and write amazing stories on an everyday basis.