Liguria is my favorite region after Tuscany and it may have Italy's prettiest coastline. I usually go there to hike and swim but this time the draw is what my friends say are the best fireworks in Italy. My friends who come yearly to their ancestral home in Lucca's mountains, head to Rapallo every July to see the famous fireworks and I'm spontaneously going with them
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Post #5 getting the Carta d’Identità
I am now the proud owner of an Italian Carta d'Identità. In Post #3 I talked about going to the Anagrafe office (Vital Statistics Bureau) to apply for residency after getting my permesso. The woman in that office had told me that the Questura (Police Station) doesn't know to tell foreigners that they must go to the Anagrafe after obtaining their permesso. She basically
Read MorePaddle boarding in Tuscany
SUP in Tuscany at Lido di Camaiore If you love SUP, and the Italian sea, as I do, you'll be glad to know that it's now common to find SUP at Italy's beach towns. After five months of cold it suddenly turned warm enough on April 15 to switch to summer clothes and by April 21 I was paddle boarding in the sea, out of Lido di Camaiore (a beach town on the part of the northern
Read MoreWhy I Risked Everything to Buy an Apartment in Florence
A personal essay Not long ago I woke up and was fifty years old, with more than half my life already lived. Divorced, and without kids, essentially alone, I decided to follow my lifelong dream of living in Italy, but to do so, I had to “dare greatly” as Dr. Brené Brown calls it. I’d been in love with the city of Florence since age nineteen when I backpacked around
Read MoreTuscany off the beaten path: The Svizzera Pesciatina
Google the Svizzera Pesciatina and not much will show up. These small stone villages are in the hills above Pescia, and I'd not heard of them until I started living in Lucca. My recent visit to them sure felt like Tuscany off the beaten path. Pescia, a simple tow east of Lucca, suffered quite a bit of damage in World War II, and it's not on the tourist track. Above Pescia,
Read MoreWhat you don’t know about Italian rental properties
Are you thinking of moving to Italy and renting a house/apartment? Are you wondering if your house in Italy will be just like the peach colored villa under a warm Tuscan sun you saw in a movie? After the popularity of my post on the challenges of buying property in Italy, I decided to write this post about Italian rental properties, aimed at advising people what to expect
Read MoreWhat you don’t know about buying property in Italy
Disclaimer: This post is to inform my audience (mostly North Americans wondering about moving to Italy) about some of the challenges house-hunting in Italy. This post is not coming from a clueless American who wants to be coddled. It is possible to adore Italy and not adore every single thing about it. My intention is to be helpful and realistic and not to only describe a La La
Read MoreFinding Happiness with a Move to Florence
I am pleased to add this interview to my Taking the Plunge series Sophie Charlotte flourished in ways she never dreamed of after a move to Florence: When did you move to Florence, and what motivated you to make the move? I turned my long distance relationship with Italy into a long-term commitment in 2010, and I chose Florence. Florence has always represented
Read MorePost #3 What to do after receiving the Permesso
The Road to Italian Citizenship is Long It is long even when you have Italian grandparents, and when you don't have that, or EU citizenship, the road is ten-years long. I'm five months into my ten-year process and here's how it's stacking up: I received my coveted permesso di soggiorno (permit to stay) in June about a month after I applied. Unfortunately, on June 9, a
Read MorePost #2 What happens at the Permesso appointment
What will happen at your Permesso di Soggiorno Appointment? My process and what you can learn from it: Most expats get nervous about their permesso di soggiorno appointment at the questura (police office). But, because my paper work had been done by INAC, I was confident. What could go wrong? But then on an expat forum I was told to "have a thick skin" and "they will
Read MoreWhere to Spend Liberation Day in Italy
A fitting place to go on Liberation Day in Italy is the small hamlet of Sant' Anna di Stazzema. On an August morning in 1944, German troops entered Sant'Anna di Stazzema and committed what is probably the worst war crime on Italian soil, executing all people present that day in the hamlet, then killing the animals and burning the
Read MoreGutsy Expat Life on Sardinia
I am pleased to add this interview to my Taking the Plunge series Here is Jennifer Avventura, a Canadian Freelance writer who lives on Sardinia: The life of an expat is never easy. Moving to a new country, maybe learning a new language and generally starting a new job are stressful factors for anyone beginning new. I’ve been an expat for sixteen years and in four
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