Four Ports, One Voyage: The Escola’s 20th Anniversary Itinerary
Four ports, five days, and a garden left behind in two of them: here’s what’s actually happening this October.
Between 14 and 19 October 2026, the Escola community will sail from Barcelona to Civitavecchia, Palermo and Genoa — the four ports whose 2006 partnership founded the school — for a week of ceremonies, an onboard course titled “Education beyond Intelligence”, and public celebrations at each stop, all followed live on social media under #Escola20Y.
The itinerary
The celebration opens in Barcelona on 14 October, at the Escola’s own headquarters in the port: a 20th anniversary presentation, an awards ceremony and the inauguration of the Jardins de l’Areté, followed by a press conference and the opening of the anniversary course, ahead of the ship’s departure that evening for Civitavecchia.
From there, the voyage continues to Civitavecchia on 16 October, Palermo on 17 October and Genoa on 19 October, each port hosting its own celebration together with the local Port Authority — an institutional ceremony, cultural moments, and networking between port administrations, sector companies, training centres and public institutions. Across the four stops, close to 700 people from around the Mediterranean are expected to take part.
Between ports, participants in the Escola’s celebratory course will take five thematic modules — on leadership, presence, listening, ethics and lifelong learning — led by Eduard Rodés, Marta Miquel, Jordi Pérez, Ramon Andreu, María José Codina Felip and Fran Arrébola Concejero, closing in Genoa with course reflections and certificate delivery.
A garden left behind in iron and stone
Alongside the voyage, the anniversary leaves something permanent at each founding port: the Jardins de l’Areté, an open space for encounter, dialogue and reflection, named for the Greek concept of areté — virtue, excellence, fulfilment. The first two gardens, in Barcelona and Civitavecchia, will be inaugurated on 14 and 16 October, each holding a sculpture made for the Escola by José Luis Pascual: laser-cut iron, shaped and hand-finished through ferroflexia, set on a wooden pedestal. A rising sun of six stars — one for each of the Escola’s founding values, and standing for the countries of its alumni — crowns a figure of Isis, goddess of wisdom, watching over a Mediterranean rendered in the metal below.
The two sculptures share a detail that isn’t visible to the eye but is built into how they were made: they face one another across 800 kilometres of open sea, Barcelona looking toward Civitavecchia and Civitavecchia looking back — a quiet nod to the bond between the two ports that hosted the Escola’s very first courses in 2004. Palermo and Genoa will mark their own version of the same legacy, each naming a site of its own where a statue in the same spirit will be unveiled during the anniversary events on 17 and 19 October.
Recognizing those who built it
Alongside the gardens, the Escola is presenting Areté institutional recognitions to the port authorities, collaborator companies, training centres and universities that have shaped its journey, and individual recognitions to the teachers, alumni and collaborators who have left their mark on its history — with ceremonies distributed across all four ports.
Journalists are invited to the institutional events at each stop, and selected media will travel with the Escola for the full voyage — part of a year-long communication campaign that will follow the anniversary under #Escola20Y. For everyone else, the best seat is on our socials: follow along as the Escola sails the route it started on, twenty years later.
