International students: what can you do in Brescia

Episode 1: the “nightlife”

I love my city, it has a great and interesting history but I can’t deny that there aren’t many tourists that come here, nor it is a famous university city.

Therefore, what can you do once you move to Brescia? There are different activities, at the moment maybe a little bit limited by the pandemic situation, but trust me, as soon as the Government will allow us we will organize planty of things!!

I think this might be a nice column, therefore I will start with some tips for the nightlife.

Ok, perhaps the word ‘nightlife’ is misleading. As I said, Brescia is a tiny city, and after those two years in lockdown I am starting to forget how was coming back home a 3 a.m. (as we are all, right?).

First: you are not alone

There are many activities you can do on your own, but I suggest you to also enroll in a student association. In your university there might be many, but what I would suggest you is to go for AEGEE Brescia or ESN Brescia.

I suggest those because they accept students from any university and they both organize activities for international students (therefore you are sure to meet people that speak english).

I am actually enrolled in AEGEE Brescia, I reccomend it for all the activities we roganize and I also suggest you to check if your city has a AEGEE antenna. In Brescia we work with ESN Brescia as well, and I know that they organize different activities for international students as well.

Being in a student association means that you have a local group to rely on, people that are happy to introduce you the city and inform you in case there are interesting activities in the city.

Now let’s check what you can usually do by night, according to different seasons.

In Summer

Something I loved about summer was strolling around the streets of Carmine at night. Carmine is a lovely part of the city center, with a typical italian architecture (actually some might advise against walking alone at night here) and during the summer period all bars here are opened until late. Is crowded, full of life, with very nice bars where you can drink.

If you are interested in trying local drinks, you might like to stay tuned for my local-wine-hints in the section “tips and reviews“.

In summer there are many other events and, according to your interests, you can enjoy a movie outdoor in the Castle of Brescia, or you can go to the local theater (Teatro Grande) where there always are shows or you can simply enjoy an aperitif with your friends. But what I really wait for is the Pride: celebrations take place from the afternoon until night, the alleys in Carmine are soooo crowded till late night, the atmosphere is fantastic!

Fall

It’s the time when students are back to class, the different associations organize different activities.

As I mentioned before, AEGEE Brescia and ESN Brescia sometimes organize events together: one of those is the Linguistic Aperitif, events held during the aperitif time (which starts around 5 or 6 pm) and where people gather in a bar and speak different languages. There is an English-speaking group, a German-speaking group, a Spanish-speaking group and so on. It is helpful to students that want to practice their oral skills and might be interesting to foreign students that want to share facts about their colture.

Of course this format can be done at any time during the year, but I think it is interesting expecially during the class period, therefore in Fall and Spring (of course this is a general statement).

Winter

Something you need to know is that people from Brescia are always is for an aperitif! and when the temperatures get lower, you might want to try some vin Brulé (or a Bombardino if you are extremely cold). What I love about this period is Corso Zanardelli: is one of the main streets of the city center, therefore every year there are beautiful Christmas lights on, there is a lovely atmosphere and you can see a little wooden-made house where old Alpini make vin brulé or hot chocolate.

Winter is the exam period, what in Italian we call “sessione invernale“. Therefore, I can also suggest you to go to a museum: again, you can go at any time to the museum (in Brescia we have Brescia Musei), but in winter the weather might be a bit cold, and the sun sets at around 5 pm so the best activity you can do if you are interested in art is to check Brescia Musei website to stay tuned!

Spring

Spring is full of activities! The weather gets warmer and warmer, it is the perfect time to go running in the afternoon… and to chill at the theater by night! Even though there might be activities closed for the different holidays, there should be for sure something open.

Which are those “many holidays”? For istance, we have Easter or the International Worker’s day, therefore many activities might be closed, you should just check online for more specific upload. But there are also holidays but we do not celebrate, suche as the Spring Festival: in Milan they do bigger celebrations, it’s something I have been looking forward to see, and also is very close. To go to Milan you just need to take one train and in one hour (or half an hour with the high speed train) you can get there.