A trip that took place from 5 to 9 Sep­tem­ber to the Basque Coun­try on the north coast of Spain that was fan­tas­tic in every respect was expe­ri­enced by the 18 par­tic­i­pants, who were also joined by Alexan­der Link from ENERGETIX’s man­age­ment and – as a warm­ly wel­comed guest – Dorothé Förster, the founder’s wife.

Bil­bao kicked off a whole sequence of trav­el high­lights. The city is con­sid­ered an insid­er tip and has devel­oped into a true cul­tur­al hotspot with count­less sights. Among oth­er things, the group expe­ri­enced the Azku­na Zen­troa Cul­tur­al Cen­tre, a for­mer gra­nary with unique Art Nou­veau ele­ments and the – prob­a­bly unique – swim­ming pool with glass bot­tom.

Any fan of wine will be famil­iar with the name of Rio­ja. ENERGETIX’s trav­el group got to learn about ‘ver­ti­cal’ wine-mak­ing – a par­tic­u­lar­ly gen­tle and glob­al­ly unique pro­duc­tion method that pre­serves the grapes’ orig­i­nal flavour – at the Baig­or­ri vine­yard that is locat­ed in this region that is famed through­out the world for the wines that are grown there. There was, of course, also some tast­ing of the wines – accom­pa­nied by a real­ly fine sequence of dish­es!

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San Sebas­t­ian will also remain a very fond mem­o­ry. That’s where many Art-Deco details trans­port vis­i­tors to a dif­fer­ent and unique age – some­thing to which the many top restau­rants also make a not incon­sid­er­able con­tri­bu­tion – world city lev­el. But per­haps it’s prefer­able to take a stroll through the pic­turesque cob­bled old town to enjoy some pin­tx­os, i.e. Basque tapas, or to take a dip in the very near­by sea with its dream beach­es? ENERGETIX’s busi­ness part­ners were spoilt for choice.

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And then the Guggen­heim Muse­um! A mar­vel of lime­stone and tita­ni­um. Star archi­tect Frank O. Gehry has designed and real­ized a true tem­ple of cul­ture here. And, as an attrac­tion, it has made Bil­bao famous. Peo­ple talk about the ‘Guggen­heim effect’, which our group was priv­i­leged to expe­ri­ence: Frank O. Gehry’s work has giv­en Bil­bao a new face.

And the atmos­phere dur­ing the trip? Well, this is what one of the par­tic­i­pants had to say: “I laughed more on this trip than dur­ing the whole of the last few months!” There were also some very inten­sive exchanges between the par­tic­i­pants, par­tic­u­lar­ly about their expe­ri­ences with online com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Every­one learned from every­one, with IT Man­ag­er Alexan­der Link being par­tic­u­lar­ly sought-after as the per­son to talk to.

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What remains is the mem­o­ry of a fan­tas­tic trip, an inten­sive group expe­ri­ence, effec­tive exchange of expe­ri­ences, per­son­al­i­ty build­ing through immer­sion in a neigh­bour­ing and rich cul­ture and thus the incen­tive for every­one of ENERGETIX’s busi­ness part­ners to give their all and qual­i­fy at the next com­pe­ti­tion. After all, the trip is just the ‘icing on the cake’, the ‘cher­ry’, so to speak; the short-term gain is in high­er sales, the long-term gain is in sus­tain­able income from a larg­er team.

Find more pho­tos on Flickr.