PACK YOUR MATA

If you know the story of Mata, you know that us Mata folk love to travel. We love it a lot, and I personally try to take advantage of every opportunity I have to go out into the world to explore. I’m the kind of person who will drop everything and move to Mexico for a year (to teach English) or embark on a round-the-world adventure with 2 friends (that’s how Mata started).

Work commitments have kept me from traveling as much as I’d like these days, but luckily, a trip presented itself this spring: the World Fair Trade Organization’s biennial conference. It was being held in Milan, so Scott, and I decided to make a trip out of it. Scott also works at Mata, and the truth is we hadn’t had a true vacation in quite I while. So we didn’t feel (too) guilty tacking on some extra travel time to visit some places he’s always wanted to see: Greece and Italy.

Six days of conference plus a couple weeks of sightseeing – we’d be gone almost a month altogether. What to pack? Mata of course! I tend to pack light, because I’m small and I don’t want to carry a lot. I took 8 Mata dresses, 1 pair of skinny jeans, 3 long-sleeved tops to layer, a cardigan, a blazer, 2 light-weight scarves, and a hat.

Laying out what I’m packing the night before the trip

Scott studied ancient civilizations, and lately he’s been delving into the Bronze Age, so our itinerary was chock-full of Minoan and Etruscan sites. But first, we happened to be overlapping with friends who were also traveling in Greece, so we popped in on them on the quaint island of Hydra. How quaint is it? There are no motorized vehicles on the entire island.

Scott overlooking Hydra

Then we took an overnight ferry to Crete, where we spent a week visiting 4,000 year old ruins and driving through the gorgeous Cretan landscape.

Though better known for it’s dramatic cliff-top towns and red sand beaches, the nearby island of Santorini has a great Minoan site, too! I actually spent time working on a presentation for the conference, and I couldn’t have asked for a more stunning office.

Our last couple days before the conference were spent in Athens, which is a really awesome city with a famous site or two.

I didn’t get many photos from the conference, but I did manage to get a great shot of some dedicated fair traders reenacting the WFTO logo. I was pretty nervous heading into the conference because I was giving a speech and a workshop. Don’t worry, they turned out just fine! The conference hotel was located just next to the grounds of the World’s Fair, and on the last day I popped over with a few of my fair trade friends.

After the conference, Scott and I headed down through Tuscany to visit some medieval towns with Etruscan roots and stayed a couple nights in Cortona and Orvieto.

Our last stop was brief: a half-day in Rome!

They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you certainly can’t see it all in a day either. We’ll be back! Hope you enjoyed seeing this trip through my Mata wardrobe – click on the photos to buy what I’m wearing!