BYE, BYE DUBROVNIK

Our journey to Dubrovnik is finishing. This morning we have had the chance of enjoying the astonishing views of the city from the top of the mountain, where we have arrived with our partners of A Step Furthers project by the cable-car. After taking lots of photos, we have gone down to have lunch together in a nice place close to the port of the Old Town, where we have received the certifications of the project and we have shared experiences and anecdotes. A great atmosphere to say goodbye until the next project.

THIRD DAY

Our journey to Croatia continues today with a trip to Peljesac peninsula and Korcula island. The first one is distinguished by the growing of mussels and oysters apart from the characteristic stones that cover all the country. From here, we have taken the boat to Korcula, which is one of the best preserved medieval towns of the Mediterranean and a traditional tourist and cultural centre of the island. 

Zubiri students

SECOND DAY IN DUBROVNIK

Today the sun shines and the students have taken some photos of the city while teachers were meeting. After that, we have had lunch all together in one of the typical restaurants of the old town of Dubrovnik. The last activity of the day has been the visit to the astonishing walls that surround the city. One hour and a half trough the history of the town camera in hand.

Zubiri students

LEONARDO STEP FURTHER

PARTNER MEETING. DUBROVNIK.

FIRST DAY: ARRIVING
We are already in Dubrovnik. This is the first day of our visit to this beautiful Croatian city where we are meeting our partners of 'A Step Further' project.
After the greetings and despite the rain, we have enjoyed some of the charming places of the Old Town. Tomorrow we will start with the arranged programme including a visit to the city, its walls, squares ... You will discover all of it tomorrow in our next post.

A STEP FURTHER LEONARDO PARTNERSHIP 2011-2013

5^th meeting in Donostia – San Sebastian

18-21 March 2013

The 5^th meeting of A Step further took place in Donostia. Our partners from Croatia, Slovenia, Polonia and Turkey came to Donostia. The partners had the opportunity to visit Donostia and Bilbao. Our colleagues, tourism students, worked hard showing them the best of Donostia and Hondarribia. The tourism students of Errekamari of Bilbao showed them Bilbao.

We presented the project brochure and the project agencies merchandising was exchanged among the partners.

We hope they enjoyed the Basque Country!!!

Many workers are forced to take early retirement

With the issue of the crisis Spain is suffering a lot in the economy and much of these aspects of the crisis is reflected in early retirement.

As we know, the retirement age is in 65 years but we can retired earlier. Many of workers between 61 and 63 years old are unemployed, so they are retiring. To think, just two months ago that the new pension act can have access to a voluntary retirement, early or forced to retire two years would enable you ahead of schedule. The self-employed are the most affected ones and that blocking the new law requires them to continue trading until 65 years old.

The central government suspended until March these sections under the act. Them, we’ll know what it will happens with all the workers and also, with the social security because they are in the limit as they hardly counted two taxpayers for every pensioner.

Xabier Alberdi

Traffic flow falls in spanish turnpike highways

Spanish highways are losing vehicle traffic since the crisis began. A recent study says that in the first 10 months of 2012 the traffic decreased in 17.193 vehicles, but the worst new is that it´s a progressive fall. This index was not known since 15 years ago.

There are many reasons for this decrease, as unemployment index, taxes increase, additional cost of expropriations and presence of secondary free roads.

In this situation 6 turnpikes are currently in insolvency proceedings and maybe some more will be in the near future.

In 2007 the vehicle fleet began to decrease after many years of increasing, up to now a 27% of the traffic flow exactly. This means the situation in the Spanish turnpikes at the moment is like in 1998.

What situation awaits us in the future? We have to start thinking about sharing cars, using the public transport or getting a bicycle. 

Xabier Torrado