Erasmus by bike: a sustainable journey from Padua to Granada
Arqus
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28 Jul 2022
He set off last Friday 22 July 2022 from the Ancient Courtyard of Palazzo Bo on a journey in the saddle of his sustainable and healthy means of transport, the bicycle: his name is Amedeo Girardi, aka ‘Otterider’, a student on the Master’s degree course in Cultural Pluralism, Social Change and Migration at the University of Padua, with a passion for cycling cultivated since childhood, which prompted him, during the summer of 2020, to make his first solo journeys around Italy by bicycle, to discover beautiful natural landscapes and places rich in biodiversity. From the Dolomites to the Po Valley, to the Tuscan hills, all the way along the Adriatic coast to the most extreme tip of Puglia, in Santa Maria di Leuca.
Amedeo was also recently part of the ‘Scholares Vagantes’ team of cyclists, which cycled across Europe between April and June 2022 to visit the oldest universities and consolidate the link between universities, on the occasion of the 800th anniversary of the University of Padua.
The idea, therefore, to undertake a journey that communicates the values of sustainable mobility, wellness and sport, student mobility and international mobility, is not new for this young student, but the destination and the objective is new: “I decided to leave from Padua and get to Granada, the destination of my Erasmus, and to share the experience through social channels, to leave a trace that can inspire other young students who, like me, want to live their university career to the full, even outside the academic structures,” Amedeo says.
Once in Granada, in fact, he will start his Erasmus semester thanks to the Open Arqus Mobility project, promoted by Arqus, and to which the University of Padua adheres, which offers female students the opportunity to live a study experience abroad.
But there’s more: the backdrop to this wonderful sporting and sustainable initiative is not only the eighth centenary of the University of Padua, but also the first 35 years of the Erasmus+ project, which was created with the intention of strengthening relations between European universities and their student communities.
A journey, therefore, that will combine sustainability, student mobility, sport and well-being, which it will be possible to follow through the official Instagram profiles of @amedeo.girardi, and @unipadovasostenibile, and which wisely grasps the invitation to “free one’s own future”, as the motto of the 800th anniversary of Unipd!
