5live's Backpackers' Guide to the Eurozone: Italy

In the end it's pretty simple. Are we willing to stay? Does the economy we're in match our own ambitions - for earnings, job security and life opportunities? Would life be better elsewhere?

Speaking to people in their twenties and thirties, firstly in Athens, and now here in Milan, a remarkable number say they're leaving. Leaving their families, leaving their friends, leaving their country. Take Giacamo. He's PhD student, so he's qualified to the gills. But he's putting himself up for export. "I can live in Italy, but I can't work in Italy. That's the point. A lot of young people like me are going outside Italy because they don't see a future in Italy."

So two countries so far on our trip. And two countries with problems. Problems that differ in scale and immediacy, perhaps. But is the spine of their economy in the future

- their talented young people - being broken in front of their eyes, right now, because of a failure to grasp the scale of today's crisis?

Chris Mason is 5live's Political Reporter. He is spending the week exploring the state of the Eurozone, visiting Greece, Italy, Germany and Belgium.

You can follow his progress on 5live, here on the 5live blog, on Twitter and on the BBC News website.