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Italy Italy is a country that most travellers are eager to visit and the second most visited country in the world for foreign students. Its ancient art, impressive monuments and the personable people make it a unique place and without comparison. Italy is a country known internationally for its delicious cuisine (pizzas, pasta and flavourful ice-cream), that has managed to conquer the hearts and the palates of the world. Italian art is one of the country’s greatest symbols, with unique painters and sculptors in record numbers. The Italian language is easy to learn and attractive for its melody and rhythm. Along its coastline we find top tourist destinations for students and travellers from around the globe who, camera in hand, come to be part of a story, to be a gladiator in the Roman coliseum, sailing along a romantic canals in Venice, a patron in Florence or why not, a mafioso in Sicily.
The Italians are proud of their rich cultural and artistic history, and they are continuing with the tradition, renowned today as great designers and craftsmen working in the richest cultural and economic circuits of the world, constantly at the forefront, on the cutting edge. The furniture, fashion, automobile industries attest to this and are where Italians mark the trends. Among the big names throughout history in the most diverse fields of knowledge are included: Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Livio, Cicero, Machiavelli, Boccaccio, Dante, Leonardo, Galileo, Giotto, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Tintoretto, Caravaggio, Vivaldi, Verdi, Puccini, Federico Fellini, Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren, Rossellini, Antonioni, Bernardo Bertolucci and many others. In sports soccer is another major component of Italian culture, as also are skiing and auto racing. But perhaps one of the greatest attractions of Italy is its people, cheerful, extroverted and attached to a culture of family traditions. The personality of the Italians from north to south is similar. With a love of life, sociable, passionate, demonstrative and sensitive to good taste, both men and women are considered the most stylish in the world. The Italian people are really hard-workers who expect, and deserve, time to relax, almost always with friends or family. Generally, working five days a week and a half day on Saturdays, it is very common to take a long break to cut the working day and one month of vacation in the summer.
Our internships are in Sicily. Sicily - oh, where to start? The most beautiful and fascinating country I have ever visited - I cannot recommend it highly enough. Sicily is just 3km from Italy but with a certain identity and culture all of its own. Its strategic position in Europe has made for a colourful past, with a stream of conquering nations, each of which have left a little of their identity on the island. Greeks, Romans, Spanish, Arabs have left their traces in the arquitecture, culture, language and cuisine. Sicily is the largest of all the Mediterranean islands and roughly has a population of about 5 million. Technically, Sicily should belong to Africa as they lay on the same continental plate; however because of the influx of Romans and Italians, they claimed it as their own.
The climate in Sicily varies. In summer the heat can be forceful. And in the winter it can get cold. Still compared with the rest of Europe, Sicily has a priviledged climate. Between September and February flights are usually cheaper.
Palermo is the capital of Sicily and in itself is a very modern city and very cosmopolitan. Compared to some of the other large towns it is very modern, but still maintains its agricultural heritage. There are many a fine restaurants here and the general value for your money is better than in the north, or other places in Europe (see below). It is a good place to do an internship for this reason and because businesses are racing ahead far faster than the rest of Italy -- or for that matter almost any other part of Europe.
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