Also, as an Italian, anyone who is not from Milan or Lombardy will tell you that Milan is honestly the ugliest, most depressing city in Italy.
It’s the economic and industrial heart of Italy, so instead of having a relatively large and intact historical core, it has a small historical core and the rest is more recent (and thus far uglier).
As for people saying bureaucracy sucks, this is a very outdated view. My mother recently died in Italy, and all my encounters with Italian bureaucracy were quick, painless and mostly online. And there were a lot of them.
Here is the issue with the digitalization of bureocracy: in most cases, it depends on you having a SPID or at least an electronic ID card. However, as a non-EU citizen, getting any of those is not easy. In fact, you can’t get those without first getting your first residence permit, which can take several months.
The residence permit is the best example of slow, outdated bureocracy. The procedure involves sending a bunch of photocopies by mail all the way to Rome. Then, the response from the central office gets sent back to your local police station. Next, months later, you go to the police station to get your fingerprints registered. Then, you wait a few more months to get the confirmation that your permit is ready. Finally, you set an appointment (around a month later) to have them hand you your permit.
You need to speak Italian.
Also, as an Italian, anyone who is not from Milan or Lombardy will tell you that Milan is honestly the ugliest, most depressing city in Italy.
It’s the economic and industrial heart of Italy, so instead of having a relatively large and intact historical core, it has a small historical core and the rest is more recent (and thus far uglier).
As for people saying bureaucracy sucks, this is a very outdated view. My mother recently died in Italy, and all my encounters with Italian bureaucracy were quick, painless and mostly online. And there were a lot of them.
Here is the issue with the digitalization of bureocracy: in most cases, it depends on you having a SPID or at least an electronic ID card. However, as a non-EU citizen, getting any of those is not easy. In fact, you can’t get those without first getting your first residence permit, which can take several months.
The residence permit is the best example of slow, outdated bureocracy. The procedure involves sending a bunch of photocopies by mail all the way to Rome. Then, the response from the central office gets sent back to your local police station. Next, months later, you go to the police station to get your fingerprints registered. Then, you wait a few more months to get the confirmation that your permit is ready. Finally, you set an appointment (around a month later) to have them hand you your permit.