One other fun bit of bureaucracy that’s worth mentioning is the permesso di soggiorno (residency permit). The student visa you’d get to come to Italy essentially only gives you permission to come here and apply for a permesso di soggiorno. It’s the permesso that shows you’re allowed to live here.

For this, you lodge an application at the post office – the forms look intimidating, but that’s because the same form covers every potential reason someone could apply for a permesso to live in Italy. The actual parts you have to fill out as a student are short and straightforward, and there are lots of useful guides online. You have to pay a fee and they give you a receipt and an appointment time to go to the Questura (state police station). This will be about a month after you’ve submitted your application at the post office.

At the Questura, you get fingerprinted and to have show them originals of passports and other key documents. There’s then a wait of about two or three months to get the actual permesso di soggiorno.

Unfortunately, during this time, you can’t really travel in Europe outside Italy. The only proof you’ll have that you’re legally allowed to be in Italy is the receipt from the post office. Italian police and border officials recognise this, but police and border officials in other Schengen zone countries don’t.

This is less of a problem in the first year, since you can use your default 90 days in 180 days Schengen tourist visa to begin with, but is a pain in subsequent years. Students are only given a permesso with one year’s validity, so you have to do this every year. Workers tend to get a permesso with two or three years’ validity, but processing times are even longer again.

It’s not a deal-breaker, but worth bearing in mind – there’ll be about 3 or 4 months in every year when you can’t easily visit places outside Italy. It’d be a particular pain if this ended up including the summer vacation – but then, that’s unlikely as a student, since you’re unlikely to arrive just before the start of the vacation.

Yes, the bureaucracy can be a pain, but it’s worthwhile putting up with. It’s easier if you won’t need to drive while you’re here too – that’s a real pain.

The other disadvantage with funding worth noting is that most universities here provide a scholarship rather than a salary. That becomes an issue if you want to live permanently in the EU, as most countries base pensions on the amount of years worked. A salaried PhD counts towards this (possible in Germany but not Italy), a scholarship does not.

I’m learning Italian, but I’m pathetically bad at it. I spoke some German when I arrived too, which helps here in Südtirol-Alto Adige. French would help in the Valle d’Aosta. Italian is surprisingly difficult to learn, but I think you’d get there eventually.

The exact requirements for language skills would likely vary between universities and departments. I think you should be ok in most science departments, but it’s worth checking. In France, the general rule is that science departments will let you take a PhD in English, but humanities departments will not, and it could be the case here too – I am not sure.

It’s still worth learning some basic Italian anyway, especially if you’ll be living outside a major city – it’s just invaluable for daily life. Finding an apartment or a room is likely going to be easier if you speak some Italian too. (I have to move again soon, so am struggling with this at the moment!)

I’d suggest that Italy is strongly regional, so worth figuring out which region would suit you best. There are lots of differences between the regions here.

As for doing a PhD here – that’s what I’m doing. What bad reviews have you heard?

I’d say there are only two main negatives personally:

(*) The standard studentship gives you about €1200 per month (net/tax-free), which is not great in the north of Italy or in a bigger city. You’d almost certainly have to live in a shared apartment and really be careful with money. It would probably be quite comfortable in a smaller city in the south of Italy, however.

(*) The bureaucracy can be confusing and annoying, both governmental and university. You can normally get through it eventually, but it’s a pain. Personally, I’ve found government bureaucrats to be quite friendly and helpful when you speak with them (though I gather this varies a lot between cities too), but this doesn’t lessen how difficult it is to figure out. As I said above, getting a driving licence is a real pain – that’s the one thing I’ve not managed so far.

I’d suggest the most important factor, regardless of which country you study in, is your supervisor. If you get a bad supervisor, you’ll be miserable regardless of where you are.

It definitely has its pluses and minuses, like everywhere else. The bureaucracy can be a pain. For example, I can’t drive because there’s no way to exchange an Australian licence with an Italian one, unlike in most EU countries. I’d need to take test and lessons in Italian or German, and it’s expensive 😬.

I think access to the countryside varies by country, but it’s generally easier in the UK than Australia, for example. The UK has a large network of public “rights of way” (footpaths through the countryside) that Australia does not, for example. These are often pretty ancient, and unpopular with landowners. Unfortunately in Australia, it seems as if landowners had more of a say and didn’t allow for a similar system there.

I’m not sure of the legal basis, but similar walking tracks seem to exist here in Italy and (I think) in France.

Australia can be difficult that way. I think it 100% depends on exactly where you live, but many places do seem quite suburban and culturally rather dull. If you can afford to live in a more interesting town or city, that’s not the case, but – no coincidence – they’re often the most expensive places to live.

I grew up in London, and found moving back to suburban Queensland to be a difficult move. I had no trouble making friends in London, but found it near impossible in Queensland. It took me about 15 years to figure out a way to leave, and now I’m studying in Italy. Hoping I won’t have to go back… It’s not perfect, of course, and you can’t escape unhappiness or negative thoughts – but at least it’s not it’s not as stultifyingly suburban, and people are more open and accepting here than in suburbia.

I suspect I could quite enjoy living in a more cosmopolitan part of Australia, but could never afford it. Ironically, moving overseas was probably an easier option.

The big things are nature: the wild bush and the ocean. I love that you can walk for days in the wilderness without being remotely close to civilisation. That’s something that’s rlly missing in Europe, it can feel claustrophobic here sometimes.

It’s certainly true that there’s less nature in Europe than Australia. One irony I’ve noticed, though, is that what nature there is here in Europe is more accessible than in Australia.

When I lived in Australia, if I wanted to go for a walk in the countryside, I had to get in the car and drive for 45 minutes+ to get to a national park. Here in Italy, I can walk through the vineyards and forests around my village. The equivalents in Australia were all private land and inaccessible.

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I miss people who are down for swimming in every natural body of water they come across even if it’s freezing cold.

Ironically I’ve come across that more in Italy than Australia. There are a few lakes locally where people swim – either just informally or at resorts.