Questura – Going for the Permesso di Soggiorno

Our appointments for the permesso di soggiorno were today at 11:50 and 11:55am. The office is located at Via della Fortezza, 17 – near the Fortezza da Basso. Our thinking was that we would show some courtesy and show up 10 minutes early and everything would go fine. Well, we arrived took numbers B219 and B220 and walked into a large room of 200+ other people waiting. A glance at the ticket board indicated that they were serving B153. It took 10 minutes to get to B154. Some quick math indicated that we could be waiting as long as 10 hours. In reality, probably more like 3 hours. However, we had other things to do.

When you walk into the Questura, you stop at the sportello (glass window) and show the person there your letter. That person hands you a ticket. If you can’t make the date your letter has indicated, you can’t just show up the next day. You have to consult a table and figure out the next appropriate day to come. It works like this: you pick the column in the table (see photo) that corresponds to the date you were summoned. Then you choose the row based on what month you were summoned. That indicates the week and day of the next month you are to return. So for April 28th then next return date is venerdi (Friday) of the 2nd settimana del mese (the 2nd week of the month) = May 16th. Complicated?

Lesson: regardless of the time you ticket shows, we would recommend going earlier unless you don't mind waiting. In the least, bring something to do. If the "guard" won't give you a ticket because you are too early - tell him you have an appointment and need to get through early?

We called it off and went for a little stroll and a bollito sandwich. I guess we’ll return on the 16th very early to pull a number. Maybe we’ll bring some knitting. We might try this afternoon after 3pm. The office takes lunch between 2 and 3 we were told.