Basic information about the city

Here as well as in the other sections I will try to give information about the city, which is not so easy to find on the internet. Of course you can see very good information in Wikipedia, but here you'll find different point of view.

When I was accepted in the Erasmus program, I didn't know anything about the city. I thought that this is some small and unknown city in Italy, with a small university. And this is true. Bolzano has population around 104 000. I didn't expect much. But when I came here I was amazed when I felt the atmosphere and saw the beauty of the city. But there is more. I was nicely surprised when I understood that this city is the number one city in living standard in Italy. And this is because it is autonomous province. This means that Bolzano is the richest city in Italy, and because of this there are lots of projects and services offered by the Municipality as well as by different organizations. This on the other hand means that a lot of manpower is needed. So if you want to start new life in Italy, Bolzano is a perfect place. Of course you should have qualification and something very important - you have to speak German and Italian, because the city is bilingual. These two languages are official in the region. All public services are bilingual. Of course English is on third place and you could use it as well, but the first two languages that I've mentioned are most important.

Most of the population in Bolzano is Italian speaking, but there are 5-6% German speaking population. If you go to the villages around Bolzano, this proportion is in favor of German. All street signs are in German and Italian. Actually after Trento, all northern parts of Italy use German language as a second official language.

People in Bolzano are very kind and friendly. They are very patient and polite. I've seen only 3 or 4 traffic jams for 5 months, and only one, fortunately very light car crash. I didn't see nervous drivers or people in a hurry, who are making noise behind the wheel. The city is very well organized and safe. There are some places on which it is not preferable to go like around the train station, but in every city the train station is not the safest place.