Let's meet in europe!

1. Let's meet in europe! T I A L Y

3. Maribor is a city in Slovenia, the seat of the Maribor urban municipality. With a population of 115,693 as of 2002, it is the second-largest city in the country. Maribor lies on the river Drava at the meeting point of the Pohorje mountain, the Drava valley, the Drava plain and the Kozjak and Slovenske gorice hill ranges. It is the largest city and the center of the Slovenian region of Lower Styria. The city's coat of arms features a white pigeon flying downwards above a white castle with two towers and a portcullis on a red shield. History In 1164 a castle known as the Marchburch was documented in the March of Styria. Maribor was first mentioned as a market near the castle in 1204, and received town privileges in 1254. It began to grow rapidly after the victory of Rudolf I of Habsburg over Otakar II of Bohemia in 1278. Maribor withstood sieges by the Ottoman Empire in 1532 and 1683, and the city remained under the control of the Habsburg Monarchy for centuries.

5. Maribor, previously in the Catholic Diocese of Graz-Seckau, became part of the Diocese of Lavant on 1 June 1859 and the seat of its Prince-Bishop. The name of the diocese was changed to the Diocese of Maribor on March 5, 1962. It was elevated to an archdiocese by Pope Benedict XVI. on April 7, 2006. Before World War I, the city had a population of 80% Germans and 20% Slovenians, and most of the city's capital and public life was in German hands. According to the last Austro-Hungarian census in 1910, Maribor and the suburbs Studenci (Brunndorf), Pobrežje (Pobersch), Tezno (Thesen), Rothwein, Kartschowin, and Leitersberg were composed of 31,995 Germans and 6,151 Slovenians. The wider surrounding area was populated almost exclusively by Slovenians, although many Germans lived in smaller towns like Ptuj. During World War I, many Slovenians in Carinthia and Styria were detained for allegedly being enemies of the state, which led to further conflicts between German Austrians and Slovenians. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary, Maribor was claimed by both the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the First Austrian Republic.

7. On 27 January 1919 Germans awaiting the American peace delegation at the city's marketplace were attacked by troops of Rudolf Maister, resulting in 13 killed and more than 60 wounded (the Marburger Bloody Sunday). Afterward, Maister's troops took control of the city, which became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (the later Kingdom of Yugoslavia) without a referendum. After the war many Germans emigrated to Austria, especially officials. German schools, clubs, and organisations were closed in the new state of Yugoslavia, although Germans made up more than 25% of the city's population in the 1930s. A policy of cultural assimilation was pursued in Yugoslavia against the German minority in response to the Germanization policy of Austria against its Slovenian minority. In 1941 Lower Styria, the Yugoslav part of Styria, was annexed by Nazi Germany. In late April Adolf Hitler, who encouraged his followers to "make this land German again", visited Maribor where a grand reception was organized by local Germans in the city castle.

9. The city, a major industrial center with extensive armaments industry, was systematically bombed by the Allies during the World War II. The remaining German population was expelled after the end of the war in 1945. After the liberation, the city capitalized on its proximity to Austria as well as its skilled workforce, and developed into a major transit, industrial and cultural center of Eastern Slovenia. After Slovenia seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991, the loss of the Yugoslav market severely strained the city's economy which was based on heavy industry, resulting in record levels of unemployment of almost 25%. The situation has slightly improved since the mid-1990s with the development of small and medium sized businesses and industry. Important people who lived in Maribor include Prince-Bishop Anton Martin Slomšek, Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, the writer Drago Jančar, Olympic gold medalist and athlete Leon Štukelj and football player Zlatko Zahovič.

11. Covilhã is a city and municipality in Portugal with a total area of 555.6 km² and a total population of 53,501 inhabitants. The municipality is composed of 31 parishes and is located in the district of Castelo Branco. The present mayor is Carlos Alberto Pinto, elected by the Social Democratic Party. The municipal holiday is October 20.

12. Gorinchem (population: 34,623 in 2004), also called Gorkum, is a city in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality covers an area of 21.99 km² (of which 3.03 km² water). The municipality of Gorinchem also includes the following towns, villages and townships: Dalem. Gorkum received city rights in 1382.

13. Nettuno is a town and commune of province of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy, 60 kilometers south of Rome. It is named in honour of the Roman god Neptune. A resort city and agricultural center on the Tyrrhenian Sea, in the Mediterranean Sea it has a population of approximately 37,000. The town was founded by the Saracens in the ninth century. It's a popular tourist destination today, where there are a well-preserved old quarter, called Borgo Medievale, with mediaeval streets and small squares, and the Sangallo Fort built in the 1500s. It's an important center of pilgrimages, as shrine of Saint Maria Goretti. In the shrine there is a crypt where the mortal remains' Saint lie. The church keeps also a priceless wooden statue of Our Lady of Grace, which is praised by all the town every year the first Saturday of the month with a procession. Nettuno has one of the most important baseball Italian teams, Danesi Nettuno often winner of the Championship. This game had taught local people from the U.S. soldiers during the Second World War, by US soldiers landed in the course of operation Shingle. The town has an American Cemetery and Memorial, where thousands of soldiers are buried.

14. In the domain of army, Nettuno has one of the biggest Poligono for the Italian Force, whose land extend to the Province of Latina, and one of the most important Italian Police Schools, where police dogs are trained. It has a touristic harbour hosting about 860 boats and a shopping center, selling everything for fishing and sailing. Nettuno is the city of the finest D.O.C. wine Cacchione. The Villa Borghese has extensive gardens.

15. Rybnik is a city in southern Poland, in the Silesian Voivodeship, close to the border with the Czech Republic, about 290 km south of Warsaw and about 100 km west of Kraków, on the southern outskirts of the metropolitan area known as the Upper Silesian Industrial Area. Rybnik is the centre of its own metropolitan area, Rybnik Coal Region (Rybnicki Okręg Węglowy, ROW).

16. History The city's name derives from the Polish word for "fish" and meant "fishpond" in the Old Polish language. The name highlights the importance of fish farming for the city's economy in the Middle Ages, which is reflected in its coat of arms until this day.The city's origins can be traced back into the 9th and 10th century, when three Slavic settlements existed on Rybnik's present-day territory which eventually merged to form one town. In the course of the medieval eastward migration of German settlers (Ostsiedlung), Rybnik, as many other Polish settlements, was incorporated (granted city status and right) according to the so-called Magdeburg Law at some point before 1308 (the exact date remains unknown). This, however, is not be confused with a change in national affiliation; Rybnik continued to be part of the Kingdom of Poland, until Silesia as a whole became a fiefdom of the Bohemian crown in 1327. The city continued to grow and developed into a regional trade centre. In the 15th century, the Hussites devastated the city, before being eventually defeated in a decisive battle on a hill nearby. From 1526, Bohemia, including the fiefdom of Silesia, which Rybnik was a part of, came under the authority of the Habsburg crown.

17. At the beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession between Frederick II of Prussia (the Great) and the Habsburg empress Maria Theresa of Austria, the greatest part of Silesia, including Rybnik, was annexed by Prussia in 1740, which Austria eventually recognized in 1763. Coal mining gained importance for Rybnik's economy as early as the 18th century. In 1871, Prussia, including Rybnik, merged into the German Empire, the first modern German nation state. At this point, Poland had already ceased to exist as an independent state, having been divided between Prussia, Austria and Russia in the Third Partition of Poland of 1795. With the intensification of Germanization and anti-Polish politics in the German Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century, the ethnically mixed region of Upper Silesia became affected by growing tensions between German and Polish nationalists. After the end of World War I in 1918, Polish statehood was finally restored. Amidst an atmosphere of ethnic unrest, a referendum was organized to determine the future national affiliation of Upper Silesia. Although an overall majority had opted for Germany, the area was finally divided in an attempt to satisfy both parties.

18. Although both parties considered the territory they were assigned insufficient, the division was justified in so far as in the German and Polish parts a majority had voted in favour of the respective nation. The lowest amount of pro-German votes was registered in the districts of Rybnik and Pszczyna (Pless). The city and the largest part of the district of Rybnik were attached to Poland; Rybnik thus became part of a Polish state for the first time since 1526. The referendum and eventual division of Upper Silesia were accompanied by three Silesian Uprisings, the first of which (in 1919) was centered on Rybnik. Within the Second Polish Republic of the interwar period, Rybnik was part of the Silesian Voivodship, which enjoyed far-reaching political and financial autonomy. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the border city Rybnik returned under the rule of Germany, being in the part of Poland that was directly incorporated into the German state. The population was ethnically categorized and either "re-germanized" or disfranchised and partially deported into the General Government as Poles.

19. After the eventual German defeat which ended World War II in the European theatre of war in 1945, Rybnik was once more integrated into Poland, the territory of which was now being shifted westward on Stalin's initiative. Rybnik thus ceased to be German-Polish border city. Its population was again categorized to be either "re-polonized" or forcefully resettled to Germany. A large portion of ethnic Germans from Rybnik eventually settled in the West German city of Dorsten (District of Recklinghausen), which eventually became one of Rybnik's twin towns in 1994. In the post-war period, coal mining continued to gain importance. The 1970s saw the construction of a coal-fired power station, which is important for power generation in the region and beyond. A reservoir on the river Ruda was constructed to provide it with cooling water. In 2002, the University of Economics (Akademia Ekomomiczna), the University of Silesia (Uniwersytet Śląski), both in based Katowice, and the Silesian Polytechnic University (Politechnika Śląska) based in Gliwice established a joint campus in Rybnik to improve academic training opportunities in the area.