Accommodation.
Daily life. Weekends.

Live in Italy - a beautiful life around your Italian course

Welcome to Italy! The classroom is only half of your experience here - what really transforms your Italian is everything else: where you sleep, where you eat your cappuccino, what you do on weekends, the friends you make at the bar at 7pm. This page is our small guide to all of that, in the four cities where we teach: Milan, Florence, Mantua and Turin. Benvenuti a casa.

Where to sleep

Four practical options, in order of how much we organise for you. On-campus residence is the simplest possible logistics - available in Florence (top floor of the Padri Scolopi building, mini-apartments, five minutes from the classroom), no rental contract to negotiate, no commute, no housing search after arrival. Italian-family homestay is a room with an Italian family that cooks dinner with you and speaks Italian at the table - the fastest single way to push your Italian from A2 to B2, available in all four cities. Shared student flat means a room in a flat with other students (Italian and international), more autonomy than homestay, more social, with options we pre-vet in each city. Independent apartment is your own studio or one-bedroom - most expensive, right for older students, partners and longer stays, with our help on the search, the contract review and the registration at the comune.

Cost of living, city by city

Italy's four cities sit on very different price tiers, and the tier you choose has a real impact on whether your long stay is financially sustainable. Milan is the most expensive - centre rents and daily life run noticeably higher than the national average, and most international students live in the well-connected periphery and budget conservatively for eating out, gym and social life. Florence is medium-high, with tourist-driven prices in the historic centre and more reasonable rents in our Via Bolognese area, comparable to Milan on food and transport but a touch lower on accommodation outside the tourist core. Mantua is the most affordable - significantly cheaper than Milan or Florence, with a small-city scale that means you walk almost everywhere; the financial case for a long stay is real. Turin sits in the medium-low tier - cheaper than Milan, comparable to Mantua but with a real-city profile (metro, larger student community, international air links).

Approximate prices (Italian national averages)

Useful for budgeting, not city-specific - Milan sits at the high end of these ranges, Mantua at the low end.

At the supermarket you will pay around €1,20 for a litre of milk, €4 for a kilo of bread, €0,80-1,20 for a kilo of pasta, €1,70-2,50 for rice, €8-10 for a kilo of chicken and €9-19 for beef; mineral water runs €0,50-1 a litre and butter around €1,70 per 250 g. Eating out, a pizzeria meal is €15-20, a full meal at a restaurant €20-35, a fast-food menu €6,50; cinema runs €9-11, a Milan-style aperitivo €8-12, clubs and bars €10-20, a concert €40-50. Getting around, a monthly public-transport pass is roughly €22 (city-dependent), a short taxi €15-20, bike-share around €9 per use, with regional-rail student discounts widely available. For wellbeing, a private commercial gym is €40-50/month and a university gym €15-20/month - with free outdoor running and cycling everywhere.

What we help you sort out on arrival

The first week is about logistics. We help you get a codice fiscale (Italian tax code), file the residence permit application within eight days where required, register at the comune if your stay calls for it, and open an Italian bank account if you need one. On healthcare, we walk you through whether to register with the Italian SSN, take private insurance or rely on your home-country coverage, and we help with the SSN paperwork if you opt for it. For connectivity, we recommend Italian prepaid SIM cards (cheap, working everywhere) and home internet for those with their own flat - the codice fiscale comes first. For transport, every city has a monthly pass and regional-rail discounts for students; bike-share works in Milan, Florence and Turin, while Mantua is fully walkable.

Weekend cultural programming

We do not run mandatory cultural programmes - they tend to attract the students least interested in actually using Italian. We do offer an optional weekend schedule each city builds around its own strengths. In Florence: guided art-history walks in Italian (scaled to level), dedicated visits to the Uffizi, Bargello and Palazzo Pitti, and Renaissance day-trips to Siena, San Gimignano and Arezzo. In Milan: design-district tours through Brera and Tortona, day-trips on Lake Como or Lake Maggiore, opera at La Scala when scheduled, contemporary art at Hangar Bicocca and Fondazione Prada. In Mantua: Palazzo Ducale and Palazzo Te in Italian, day-trips to Verona, Sabbioneta and Cremona, and food-and-wine programmes - this is mantovano country: tortelli di zucca, Lambrusco, Grana Padano. In Turin: the Egyptian Museum, the Mole Antonelliana and Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Langhe wine country, the Alps for skiing or hiking by season, and Slow Food day-programmes.