Erasmus Turin

Standard of Living

• Generally, prices are not very different from those in Portugal.
• Supermarket items, yogurts, meat, milk, etc., are slightly more expensive than those in most Portuguese supermarkets (for example: 1Kg of steak is 9. 50€)... There's always Lidl, where everything is cheaper! In regular street shops, it's also easy to find cheap fruit and vegetables. Espresso coffee, for those who enjoy it, starts at 0. 80€.
• As for restaurants, like a good pizzeria, the average price is around 15€, including the "coperto" (a per-person fee due in almost all restaurants, meaning cover charge... Like a type of tip)... It's not very different from Portugal! But if it's a quick meal, for example, a big slice of pizza can cost 2€, a McDonald's meal menu is 1€ more expensive than its Portuguese counterpart (about 5. 90€).
• Rent prices can vary, but most people paid 250/300€ per month!

Sightseeing

• You can easily travel to any city in Italy by train! The closest important cities are Milan, Pavia, Genoa (2 hour trip) and all of Liguria coast - Portofino, Santa Margherita, Cinque Terre. At about 45 minutes by train you can find the closest Ski resort - Bardonecchia, amongst others (Via Lattea, Breuil-Cervinia... ). Other, slightly distant, but equally accessible cities by train are Verona, Venice, Pisa, Florence, Siena (at about 4 hours by train). There are also buses from Turin to Geneva (Switzerland). The city of Ivrea, at 1 hour by train, also has a very famous Carnival that features an orange fight.

House rental and Lodging

• Most Erasmus look for a house with a sort of Student agency called "Sportello Casa" (in Via Verdi nº 26). There are also many ads at Universities. The website Bakeka can also be useful when looking for a house.
• Regarding lodging and residences, there are some hostels and cheap residences that are located in good areas. Some residencies exist, but I do know that the ones with better conditions and prices would not accept Erasmus students after the year I was there! There is still one residence that takes Erasmus - "Jolly Residence". It's a great place and it's where I stayed until I found a house. The only inconvenience is that it's a bit expensive (about 300€ per week).

Nightlife

• There are Erasmus parties almost every day of the week (with free entry) announced on Erasmustorino. Party locations change yearly, but most of them are in Shamrock (the day of the week might change, it can be on Thursday, Friday or Saturday), Xò (usually on Tuesdays), Club21 and Lapsus. There is also a zone near the river (called "Murazzi del Po") with an enormous variety of Bars/Discos where sometimes Erasmus parties take place as well.
• There are other Discos that don't organise Erasmus parties (but have others types of parties) that are still meeting places for Erasmus students - Chalet (on Thursdays), Centralino (Saturdays) - These have free entry, you just need to let them know you're an Erasmus student!
• Other Discos are Rock City, Indochina, Cacao, amongst others.

Climate

• Since it's so close to the Alps, it's not odd that Turin has low temperatures! In the beginning, in September and October, the weather is still great, like in Portugal! By the middle of November it gets cold and the temperatures drop so that even in March you find them to be between 0º and 10º degrees Celsius (during the colder winters the temperatures will drop bellow zero) and it is normal that it snow. Although cold, rain is rare. April and May are the months with the most rain, even though the temperatures are by then very similar to those in Portugal. June, July and August are very warm months, and as in Portugal, they're the ideal months to visit places like the beach, and even perhaps plan a trip to Sicily or Sardenia!

Transportation

• Public city transportation includes buses, tram and tube (the latter having a very short route). Individual tickets cost 1€, and can be used for about 1 hour, which means you can plan several journeys with just one! I believe the monthly pass (bus+tube) was about 20€!
• The system is very good, but the most used means of transportation by Erasmus students is the bicycle (usually they're bought at a second hand marketplace... They are really old sometimes, but the price is reasonable as they cost 25/30€). The city centre is small and easy to move around if you have a bike, to go to Uni and parties. Other types of transport are usually reserved for rainy/snowy days... Or for really far away places. Since everyone uses their bikes, almost no one gets a pass, which is only advisable to get if people don't have access to bikes easily and really have to take the bus/tube system.
• Low-cost flights to Turin are rare, so we always travelled to Milan (where there are plenty of them). There are flights with Easyjet Lisbon-Milan and Ryanair Porto-Milan (as well to other places inside Italy and Europe). The transport from the airport to the centre of Milan is by bus (about 6/7€) and from the centre of Milan to Turin is by train (2 hours of trip) that costs about 9€.

Safety

• It's a safe city, and I personally never felt threatened. I would walk alone in the street at any hour of the day with absolutely no problems. I believe the only area to avoid is the Porta Palazzo (there is a big market and its community is not friendly to the outsiders). It's not an advisable area to live in!

Gastronomy

• As expected of Italy, pizzas and pastas are abound. The existing restaurants are mainly pizzerias, but that doesn't mean that there aren't other restaurants with more elaborate meat/fish dishes... That being said, we usually had dinner in pizzerias when we did go out. There are many good pizzerias and Ice Cream parlours around the city.
• University cafeterias are open every day for lunch and dinner, and they're very good with a 1st course (pasta or salad), 2nd course (meat/fish) and dessert at about 2. 50€.
• Another interestingly typical thing in Italy are the 19-20h aperitifs. This is not a concept that exists in Portugal and it consists of going to a pub/restaurant and paying solely for the drink (usually 5 to 7€, anything from a simple soda to an alcoholic drink such as a daiquiri or caipirinha... ) and you get the right to eat anything shown and to repeat as many times as you want (normally there are pastas, pizzas, potatoes, cheeses, chorizo, salads and other snacks). We ended up going to these places regularly because it was cheap and we could eat well. There's a zone in the city called "Quadrilatero Romano" where there are very good aperitifs. I recommend KM5.

Documents/Visa

• There was no need for a specific set of documents. I only took my ID and passport (the last one is not necessary for EU citizens in Italy, but I might have had need of it for my travels). When I got there I had to take care of my Italian taxpayer number to pay for the internet, water, power, gas, etc.