Ciao everyone!
I study Italian in the UK at night school and want to go to Italy in the next couple of weeks to do some revision before my exams. I am only able to stay for a max of 1 week.
I went to Florence for 3 weeks last year and loved it! Found that the most chatting I did was in bars and at night. That said there were a lot of tourists.
Im looking at 2 possible schools:
1) Comitato Linguistico in Perugia
2) Societa Dante Alighieri in Siena
I dont really know Siena or Perugia. Has anyone been to either area or studied at either of the above and if so how did you find it?
Ideally would like to be with an international mix of students, around my age (im 25) and with lots of interaction with locals.
Thanks for your help! Jenny
chrissyb
1
samsned
Perugia will have a lot less tourists than Siena and you will probably be forced to speak Italian more. With only a week I'd go there.
2
lagatta
Perugia is a beautiful medieval city (though of course the outskirts are more modern) and surrounded by lovely towns such as Assisi and Gubbio. quovadis, when I clicked on your link, it took me to assisi, not perugia. The towns are very close, but not convenient to each other for students unless they have a car. Here is the Perugia link.
There are students from all over the world, and also an Italian state university. Important not to get into the rut of speaking your own language there (I spoke too much French - NOT to Frenchpersons or Québécois, who were all there to perfect our Italian - but to many people from North and West Africa who wound up in Perugia as much to escape the poverty of their homelands as to discover a new culture).
I had grants to study at Università per gli stranieri (what a horrid, fascist era name it still bears) but there are many private language schools now. Sorry, I don't know the ratings for any. There is also info on this at the slow travel (slowtrav.com) board.
I studied there twenty years ago but returned this past summer. It is a lovely town. Alas, the new "minimétro", a very innovative means of transport for a small city with a medieval centre, will not have opened by then. It will link one of the largest hostels directly to the city centre - handy for short stays. Ostello Spagnoli
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