An experience is a short route inside companies, company archives and museums and innovation hubs, with work done while walking and a discussion at the close of each day. It runs from two days upwards, it is done as a group, and the itinerary is published hour by hour before departure.
What it is not. It is not a course: it has no modules, no classroom hours and on its own it does not give the certificate of attendance, which is issued only on the programs. Nor is it a graduation trip or a tourist package: we do not sell transport and lodging as a product, we arrange them when they are needed to make the itinerary work. Anyone looking for a formula with training inside it and a document at the end should see the programs.
City · Turin | Florence | Rome | Milan | Bergamo | Bologna, Modena and Maranello | Venice | Parma | Salerno | Cosenza | Europe Days · 2 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 15 | 18 | 20 Season · January | February-April | May-July | September-November Group size · up to 15 | 16-20 | 21-30 Theme · brand and manufacturing | crafts and workshops | design and the city | engines | supply chains and consortia | student entrepreneurship
The catalogue holds 39 published experiences. The stops in live production, that is the plants where work is going on while the group walks through them, are six and each one has a name: the Ducati factory tour at Borgo Panigale, the Pagani factory at San Cesario sul Panaro, the Autostadt at Wolfsburg, the Concio di Amarelli at Rossano, the hydroelectric power station at Crespi d'Adda and the pasta factory at Gragnano. Every other stop is described for what it is: the archive of a living company, with its documents and its mistakes, stands up perfectly well in front of people who run businesses, but calling it a factory does not.
Three experiences are designed and not published, because the stops that make them real have not yet answered in writing. We would rather not list them than sell them half-built.
What producing inside a plant means when the product is a film. Two days in Rome among soundstages, company archives and an accelerator, watching how commissions, spaces and crafts are managed.
Rome · 2 days · all year from 8 January · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
Dozens of producers who compete with one another write together the rules that protect them all. Two days in Parma inside the archives and museums of a supply chain that turned the name of a territory into a piece of collective property.
Parma · 2 days · February to November · 10 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
A prize, a museum and a chain of companies: two days in Milan to understand how a country builds a design system and how it governs it, instead of merely having good taste.
Milan · 2 days · all year from 8 January; April is the month of the Salone del Mobile · 10 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
Two days in Turin inside the companies that turned an agricultural raw material and a metal object into two brands you recognize without reading the label.
Turin · 2 days · 8 January to the end of July and September to December · 15 to 26 participants · Quotation on request
Inside a tourist district, learning to recognize where production actually happens and where things are only sold. It is the job of anyone who has to buy from a supplier they do not know, and in Murano you learn it in two days.
Venice and Murano · 2 days · February-June and September-November, on weekday mornings · 8 to 15 participants · Quotation on request
A craft district in the south that built an export channel before the word export entered industrial plans. Two days in Vietri, with your hands in the clay and the accounts on the table.
Vietri sul Mare and Salerno · 2 days · March-June and September-October; the recommended window is March-April · 8 to 15 participants · Quotation on request
A family firm on a state road in Calabria, a brand that has held for generations and a museum that brings visitors where nobody would otherwise go. Two days inside a liquorice factory that works while you visit it.
Rossano (Cosenza), Calabria · 2 days · March-June and September-November · 10 to 30 participants on the route; the company auditorium seats more than a hundred · Quotation on request
An industrialist who designs not only the factory but the life of the people who work in it: houses, school, church, cemetery. Two days in a company town listed as world heritage, inside a hydroelectric plant that still runs.
Crespi d'Adda (Bergamo), based in Milan · 2 days · March to November; the best window is March-April · 10 to 30 participants · Quotation on request
A few dozen kilometers of plain produce brands the world pays luxury prices for. Two days inside two working assembly lines and a company museum, to understand what these competitors actually share.
Bologna, Modena, Maranello · 2 days · February to November · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
The water, the energy and the waste of a European metropolis, told by the people who run them. Two days in Milan inside the companies that provide a service to everyone and that have to explain it to whoever pays for it on the bill.
Milan · 2 days · all year from 8 January · 10 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
How a craft district defends its margin when anyone, anywhere in the world, can copy the product. Two days in Florence inside leather goods, looking at the part that cannot be copied.
Florence · 2 days · February-June and September-November; from 8 January it is workable · 8 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
Three days on a question that touches both sides of the table: why a large company prefers to buy a startup rather than build the same thing in-house, and what a startup weighs when it decides whether to sell.
Berlin · 3 days · all year, January included · 12 to 15 participants · Quotation on request
Three days on a beer producer that stopped selling only beer and started selling the idea of itself, to the point of charging admission to anyone who wants to see it. You measure what that idea is worth and look at how it is built.
Amsterdam · 3 days · all year, January included · 15 to 30 participants; it is the only experience in the catalog where a large group is an advantage · Quotation on request
Three days on something that rarely happens: a large company leaves a territory and, instead of leaving it empty, leaves it a campus that today produces more technology than when the company was there. You look at how it was possible, and who paid for the transition.
Amsterdam and Eindhoven · 3 days · all year, January included, except Saturday and Sunday · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
Three days in a city where design is neither a taste nor a craft: it is a public decision, with its own building, its own money and its own rules. You look at how a small country decided to use design as an economic lever, and what it had to build to pull it off.
Copenhagen · 3 days · all year, January included, with a note on the hours of daylight · 15 to 25 participants · Quotation on request
Three days in a country that built around one university a system where students found companies on their own, while studying, and that today exports that model. It is the only experience in the catalog where the people you meet are the same age as the participants.
Helsinki and Espoo · 3 days · all year, January included, with a note on the hours of daylight · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
Three days on a company that does two things at once: it assembles cars and it sells the experience of coming to collect them. You cross the assembly line and then you cross the park built next to it, and you look at what each of the two is worth.
Berlin and Wolfsburg · 3 days · all year, January included · 12 to 15 participants, with the group split in two for the guided visit · Quotation on request
Three days inside the largest startup campus in Europe, built in a former railway station. The question is not how many companies fit inside: it is what a startup is asked for in order to get in, and what happens to the ones that are shown out.
Paris · 3 days · all year, January included · 15 to 25 participants · Quotation on request
Four days following a luxury supply chain from the thread to the shop window, and working out where the margin sits along that chain: in the loom in Como, in the design studio, in the Montenapoleone boutique, or in none of the three.
Milan and Como · 4 days · 8 January to July and September to December · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
Four days in the same stretch of the Po plain, where two industries with nothing in common were born, engines and food, and where both solved the same problem the same way: turning a geographical limitation into a name that sells for more.
Bologna, Modena, Maranello, Parma · 4 days · February to November · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
Four days on two crafts that have existed on this coast for centuries, paper and ceramics. One stayed an industry, the other became high-priced craftsmanship. You look at why, and at what decided that difference.
Amalfi, Vietri sul Mare, Salerno · 4 days · March to June and September to October · 12 to 15 participants · Quotation on request
Four days in twenty kilometers of valley, where six textile companies opened their own archive and their own museum to the public. The subject is a single one: how a European textile district withstood forty years of Asian competition without moving from where it was, and what it had to change to manage it.
Biella, Trivero, Pollone · 4 days · March to June and September to November · 15 to 18 participants · Quotation on request
Four days on a single question: how a company is handed over to whoever comes next. It is the question most members of a student association of young entrepreneurs take home, because many are already living it from the inside.
Milan and Sorrento · 4 days · April to June and September to October · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
Four days and three cities to set side by side three companies that sell well and have nothing in common: an industry, a craft workshop and a design system. At the end they are compared, with the numbers of each one.
Milan, Turin, Florence · 4 days · 8 January to the end of July and September to December · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
Four days on a Mediterranean island nobody associates with microelectronics and that became a European semiconductor node. The question of the route is not «what is produced here»: it is what it takes for a technology district to be born in a place where nobody was looking for one.
Catania and Randazzo · 4 days · March to June and September to November · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
Four days in a town of thirty thousand people that turned a durum wheat format into a name recognized all over the world, and in a large city next door that has other names to defend. The question is always the same: who owns a brand that carries the name of a place.
Naples and Gragnano · 4 days · March to June and September to October; with production open, 30 May and 11 to 13 September · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
Four days on four Tuscan companies that do manual work and that all have the same problem: who teaches the craft to whoever comes next, how much teaching it costs, and what happens to the company on the day the last person who knows how to do it retires.
Florence, Fiesole, Montelupo Fiorentino · 4 days · March to June and September to October · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
Four days to see what actually changes inside a company that gets certified, and how a certification is told apart from an advertising campaign that talks about the same thing. You look at the documents, not at the slogans.
Valdagno, Stra, Conegliano · 4 days · March to June and September to November · 15 to 18 participants · Quotation on request
A week in a region that holds at the same time the oldest agribusiness in Italy and the most advanced microelectronics, and where the two worlds barely speak to each other. The question of the week is why, and what it would take for them to start.
Palermo, Catania, Taormina, Randazzo · 7 days · March to June and September to October · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
A week in the three cities that built twentieth-century Italian industry, and in a fourth, small one, where a company made the first personal computer in 1965 and today no longer exists. The subject is not nostalgia: it is what is left inside a city when the industry that made it withdraws.
Milan, Turin, Ivrea, Genoa · 7 days · 8 January to June and September to December, with three closing windows to avoid · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
A week on three districts that chose three different roads in the face of the same problem, international competition: one specialized, one internationalized, one formed a consortium. At the end the three results are compared, with the companies' documents in hand.
Biella, Trivero, Pollone, Milan, Parma · 7 days · March to June and September to November · 15 to 18 participants · Quotation on request
A week on four products with nothing in common, a coffee, a motorbike, a shoe and a design object, which all have to solve the same problem: convincing a buyer who does not speak Italian and has never been to Italy.
Milan, Turin, Bologna, Florence · 7 days · 8 January to July and September to December · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
A week that starts in Milan and ends on the coast, built on three questions every Italian company asks in the same way and that the north and the south answer differently: where do I find people, how do I export, who do I leave the company to.
Milan, Naples, Gragnano, Salerno coast · 7 days · March to June and September to October · 15 to 20 participants · Quotation on request
A week inside the business model the Veneto invented: many small companies, each good at one single thing, which together make up a chain. You look at whether that model still holds today, with two concrete tests, succession and certified sustainability.
Venice, Stra, Valdagno, Conegliano, Treviso · 7 days · March to June and September to November · 15 to 18 participants · Quotation on request
A week outside the cities, inside companies based in towns of a few thousand people that sell across half the world without having an export department. You look at how they do it, and at what they have in place of that department.
Florence, Siena, Arezzo, Sansepolcro, Fornaci di Barga · 7 days · April to June and September to October · 15 to 25 participants · Quotation on request
Fifteen days, five countries, five different questions. In each country you look at one single way of running a business, chosen because that country does it better than the others, and at the end the five models are set side by side.
Milan, Berlin, Amsterdam and Eindhoven, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Espoo · 15 days · January, and it is the only route in the catalog designed for January · 12 to 15 participants; above 15 the route changes, and how is written further down · Quotation on request
Fifteen days, five countries, one single city per country and one day per country decided by the institution that brings the group. It is the route with the fewest moving pieces of them all: five stops, four flights, no trip outside the city, and a third of the time left free for whoever knows their students better than we do.
Milan, Berlin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki · 15 days · January · 12 to 15 participants; above 15 the route changes, and how is written further down · Quotation on request
Eighteen days built around a question an international programs office asks first and that almost no program survives: did you visit factories, or just museums? This variant adds to the European route a second Italian city, a day inside a working German car plant and a day devoted to a Dutch technology campus.
Milan, Bologna, Berlin and Wolfsburg, Amsterdam and Eindhoven, Copenhagen, Helsinki · 18 days · January · 12 to 15 participants, with the group split in two for one guided visit · Quotation on request
Twenty days, six countries, two working factories and one possibility that exists nowhere else in our catalog: sitting in front of a person who designs a product known all over the world and asking them how they do it. It is the longest route, the most expensive and the most fragile, and all three are written on this page.
Paris, Milan, Bologna, Berlin and Wolfsburg, Amsterdam and Eindhoven, Copenhagen, Helsinki · 20 days · January · 12 to 15 participants, with the group split in two for one guided visit · Quotation on request
In January much of the Amalfi Coast is closed, the coast road can stay cut for days and Italian companies reopen after 6 January: that is why the only January route is urban and Nordic. The real Italian window runs from February to April, and the second one from September to November. Month by month, what is open and what is not: → When to travel, and why
A route on its own hands over no documents. Inside a program it does, and two field days are already included in the price of the intensives. → For groups · The programs
STUDIES WITHOUT RECOGNITION OF OFFICIAL VALIDITY. Istituto Belmonte is a private Italian training center. Its programs do not confer qualifications with legal validity in Italy or in Mexico and carry no academic credits. A certificate of attendance is issued.
We answer within two working days with the dates, the day by day program and the quotation.