Teramo - Italie

Town hall

The cathedral

Teramo is a city of the Abruzzo region, located in the northern part, in a hilly area below the slopes of the Gran Sasso, which slopes down towards the coast with a rich vegetation of vineyards and olive groves. Its geographical position allows it to be just 25 km from the sea and 30 km from the mountains.

It is located about 263 metres above sea level, its area is 151.88 km ², its population is 54,957.

25 Km. from the sea

30 Km from the mountain.

The city lies at the confluence of the river Tordino Vezzola that wrap around its historical center.

Being situated in a deep hollow, the semi-continental climate is temperate, temperatures in the coldest month (January) are around 5.5 ° C and the warmest(July) on the 25 ° C, with an excursion of almost 20 ° C; precipitation, which are around 800 mm per year, are concentrated mainly in the early fall(September-October).

Given its location in the heart of a shallow valley in the summer episodes of intense heat and muggy stagnant are not uncommon.

City in constant evolution, which is trying to change his appearance and his economic situation in many respects, Teramo has changed from purely agricultural tradition to an industrial and scientific reality, as evidenced by the presence in the territory of the 'Laboratory of Nuclear Physics', the largest in the world, the Astronomical Observatory of Collurania, and the Institute Zooprophylactic.

Gütersloh

Gütersloh is a very green city with the population of 96.404 inhabitants. The area is 111,99 km². We have many timbered houses and a nice new theater with a tower next to it. Here are many places and parks where you can relax with friends. Also we have a shopping street with some shops, at this moment we have a christmasmarket with music, food and drinks, it´s very nice there. In our freetime we can go to meetingpoints for young people or through the city.

In Gütersloh we have big companies like Miele and Bertelsmann, they produce for the whole world.

Städtisches Gymnasium Gütersloh

One of the new buildings

Playground for the older students.

Another new building. It contains the new canteen.

At our school there are 1688 students, 125 teachers and it consists of 5 buildings.
It includes 51 classes and 78 rooms.
Also we’ve got 2 playgrounds, 2 halls for the break and 2 kiosks.
Since this year we‘ve got a new canteen with warm food for the breaks.
Our website: http://www.sg-guetersloh.de/

Zabrze - my hometown

Zabrze is situated in the Silesian voivodeship in the south of Poland. It is an industrial and modern city. There about 180,000 citizens in Zabrze.
Zabrze is famous for the Historical Coal Mine Guido. It is a huge attraction for tourists. When you are in Zabrze, you must go there.

Zabrze is also known for the Silesian Center for Heart Diseases where professor Religa perfomed his first heart transplantation in 1985.
There are two big shopping centres. One of them is located in the city centre and the other one in the suburbs. They are open even on Sunday.

We also have a famous Music and Dance House where a lot of live concerts and performances take place.

Górnik Zabrze is our famous football team. Football is a very popular sport in Poland.

First Meeting

During our first Comenius Meeting which took place in Zabrze in Poland from October 9^th till October 12^th, we planned the upcoming two years in greater detail. This time, only teachers of the three participating schools met, Loreto and Carlo from Italy, Julia and Katrin from Gütersloh and Kasia, Kasia and Ania from our Polish host town Zabrze.

In our schedule of the upcoming two years, several aspects had to be reorganized or even changed, as two of five partners who applied for a Comenius grant had not been granted just this.

So we decided to organize three meetings with pupils and teachers from all three partner schools – in April 2012 in Germany, in October 2012 in Italy and in April 2013 in Poland. Especially for the time period until April 2012 we already planned all the scheduled activities in detail and distributed the tasks amongst the three partner schools. In Germany, the same will then be done for the time period April 2012 till October 2012.

Apart from working, our Polish partners tried to bring close to us and the Italian guests the Silesian way of life. Apart from sightseeing in Zabrze and Katowice we visited the museum in Ruda Śląska and learned about the life of a typical Silesian family at the beginning of the last century. Furthermore we were informed about the history of coal mining in Silesia and visited a typical housing estate for miners that has now been restored – the Nikiszowiec District – as well as the Memorial Cross of the ‘Wujek’ Miners.

We finished our meeting and celebrated the success of it with a typical Silesian meal in a traditional restaurant. All that remains to be said is that our four days in Zabrze were very productive and informative as well as entertaining and will certainly form a brilliant starting point for a successful cooperation, communication and friendship in the next two years.

Thank you again to Kasia and her colleagues for the organization of these fantastic days.