Europe

One hundred and thirteen UNESCO Global Geoparks, twenty-eight countries. Ten months spent crossing a continent of many faces, shaped by history, carved by landscapes, yet deeply connected beneath the surface. From the Arctic Circle to Atlantic archipelagos, from southern volcanoes to eastern plateaus, I travelled through lands sometimes divided by borders, sometimes shared, woven together by long memory. Languages shifted, stories changed, but often, gestures echoed each other. Megaliths raised toward the sky, caves painted with the same mysterious forms, tools, songs, and ways of doing passed down through the breath of everyday life. Across centuries, knowledge spoke back and forth, through stone, bread, fire, and voice. In each Geopark, geology was no backdrop, it was foundation. It fed imagination, shaped culture, inspired belief. It was the living ground beneath us all. I did not simply cross a continent, I followed a thread, the one that ties us to the Earth, an ancient bond, diverse in form, yet profoundly shared.