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Friuli-Venezia Giulia has 215 comuni (municipalities). Run them through my framework, and you’ll end up with eight viable candidates.

The framework, as you probably know by now, screens towns based on population (between 15,000 and 100,000; not too big, not too small), availability of a hospital nearby, a high school and a supermarket in town, not in the worst seismic zone, not depopulating too fast, and so on.

Truth be told, in Friuli the population filter does most of the screening for us. Nine survive that filter. The biggest city, Trieste, is out because it’s too populated. The other 205 are too small.

The remaining filters eliminate one more town, leaving eight serious candidates for relocation to Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

What is living in Friuli-Venezia Giulia actually like?

Friuli-Venezia Giulia is Italy’s northeastern corner, and it’s the region that trips up schoolchildren in geography class. In fact, despite its name, it’s not Venezia’s (Venice’s) region. That would be Veneto just west of it.

It borders both Austria and Slovenia and faces the Adriatic Sea, with interesting cultural and atmospheric consequences. As of the end of 2025, it had 1,193,496 residents, down 1.9% in ten years, which is actually good by Italian standards. One in six people in the region lives in the capoluogo di regione (capital), Trieste.

It’s a special-statute region, which means it has more autonomy and retains more tax euros compared to a standard region. Residents even get a regional discount on fuel for their private cars, and the discount grows the closer you get to the national borders.

Its provinces were abolished for roughly a decade, but the regional council voted to bring them back, effective January 1, 2027. They are Udine, Pordenone, Gorizia, and Trieste.

For you, a potential newcomer, nothing really changes in practice. The Questura (the police headquarters where you’d renew a residence permit) is still in each of those four cities.

Population-wise, it’s a small region. Yet its economy is oversized. Unemployment is low, sitting at 4.6% in 2025, against the national average of 6.1%. In fact, in the province of Pordenone, it’s as low as 3.0%.

Shipbuilding, appliances, steel, furniture, wine, and the port of Trieste all contribute heavily to Friuli’s remarkable economy.

It’s also well run. Il Sole 24 Ore’s 2025 Qualità della vita index ranks Udine 3rd out of Italy’s 107 provinces. Trieste is 17th, Pordenone 24th, and Gorizia 35th. All four provinces are in the top third of the table.

No place is perfect, but in the case of Friuli, the weaknesses are limited and specific. Trieste, for example, ranks poorly on safety almost single-handedly due to cybercrime. Gorizia ranks poorly on justice on account of too many disputes ending up in court.

But this is the safe north, where rules tend to be respected. Organized crime barely registers, and no Friuli-Venezia Giulia municipalities have ever been dissolved for mafia infiltration.

In terms of language, Italian will do. If you have even a basic mastery of the language, you’ll be able to communicate with everyone in the region. However, it’s worth noting that due to its geographic location, Friuli is fairly multilingual. In the countryside, you’ll see the local dialect/language (Friulian) widely spoken. Near the eastern border, Slovenian becomes more common, with six comuni officially bilingual. Finally, in a few Alpine valleys of the north, you’ll encounter German.

But Italian knowledge is sufficient to thrive across the region. Just don’t expect English outside of Trieste’s academic circles and around the US Air Force base at Aviano in the province of Pordenone.

The north of the country is generally more expensive than the south, real-estate wise. However, by northern standards, Friuli is relatively cheap, provided you don’t shoot for beach or ski resort properties.

Immobiliare.it’s September 2026 regional average is €1,847/m², and it’s skewed by Trieste (€2,708) and the resorts: Lignano Sabbiadoro (€3,803), Grado (€3,714), and the ski town of Sappada (€3,577).

The rest of the region is quite reasonable and, in some extreme cases, incredibly cheap. For example, Tramonti di Sopra, up in the Pordenone mountains, only asks €301/m². That means that a 100 m² apartment (1,076 ft²) would cost about €30,000. The eight towns that pass my filter run a more normal €1,200 to €2,000. For the north, genuinely not bad.

The catch might be the weather. It’s warm (budget for air conditioning), but it rains often and some areas, such as Trieste and the coast, have incredibly strong gusts of wind.

A cousin of mine did his military service in the area, and his recollection is pioveva (it rained).

To quantify this, as I like to do around here: Trieste averaged 854 mm of rain a year from 2011 to 2020. Pordenone got 1,357 mm. Udine got 1,534. Some hamlets in the pre-Alps hit over 3,000 mm.

The local wind really is no joke. Trieste and the coast are hit by the bora, a cold wind that has gusted to 157 km/h in the city. It’s wonderful for clearing the air but an absolute killer of umbrellas. Thanks to my weight, I don’t have to worry about being lifted off the ground, but if you weigh 110 lb, you might have to give it some consideration.

The good news is that air quality is decent by northern Italian standards. The fine-particle averages are under the legal limits everywhere. Pordenone, near the Veneto border, had the worst readings due to its proximity to the Po Valley and weaker northeasterly winds.

The two bigger worries are earthquakes and flooding in some areas. This isn’t theoretical. In 1976, an earthquake in the villages north of Udine killed 990 people and displaced over 100,000. The framework spares you most of the earthquake risk by only allowing towns in seismic zones 2 and 3. Zone 1, the most dangerous zone, is out, and Friuli has no Zone 4 towns.

For flooding and landslides, I recommend using ISPRA’s IdroGEO platform to look up the specific address of a property you are considering buying or renting. Particularly for properties right on the Tagliamento, the Livenza, or the Isonzo rivers.

Applying the filter to Friuli-Venezia Giulia

Here’s the funnel. As I mentioned, the population filter screens out 206 of the 215 comuni. Trieste (198,622) is too big, and 205 are too small (below 15,000 residents according to ISTAT).

The warning against moving to a tiny village is particularly relevant here, since 95% of Friuli’s comuni sit below the line.

The nine then face the rest of the filters, and they all survive except for one. That is Azzano Decimo, a growing town of 15,760 south of Pordenone. It has everything on our list except a high school. Teenagers living here would have to commute (homeschooling is rare in Italy).

Since it’s a region of the north, the 7% tax for retirees doesn’t apply here.

Without further ado, here is the list. We’ll start with the crown jewel of Friuli’s quality of life: Udine.

The best places to live in Friuli-Venezia Giulia

1. Udine

It could be argued that Udine is the region’s true capital, despite Trieste having the actual honor. It has the main hub hospital, the university, the best food in Friuli, and a Venetian-Gothic loggia in Piazza Libertà that will leave you awestruck.

Its province ranked 3rd in Italy for quality of life in 2025, and 1st in 2023. With 106 other provinces available, this is a serious achievement. At 98,501 residents, it’s also as much of a city as this framework allows you to have. All this for under €2,000/m², so you’re not even paying big-city money for it.

The downsides are the weather (1,500+ mm of rain a year) and a city that is a bit sleepy at night.

It’s for anyone who wants a proper city without a big-city price or temper. If you look at only one town in Friuli, Udine is the one.

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La Settimana Enigmistica was one of my favorite publications I’d buy from edicole (newsstands). I still grab one every time I come to Italy.

Its cruciverba (crosswords) are legendary, though way too tough for non-native Italian speakers (and many native speakers too). So it got me inspired to create a series of crosswords that are much gentler for people learning Italian.

Each edition will feature three crosswords, a beginner, an intermediate, and an advanced one (respectively at, give or take, A1, B1, and C1 levels). The beginner one has clues in English, and answers in Italian. The intermediate and advanced ones are all in Italian.

In today’s edition, the theme is visiting Italy. In the following installment of the series, I’ll reveal the solutions. Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss them.

Cruciverba per principianti

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Clues in English, answers in Italian.

Orizzontali (Across)

3 | Suitcase. Pack light, many stations have stairs. (7)

9 | Thank you (expect prego in return). (6)

10 | Ticket, for the train, the bus or the museum (9)

13 | Museum. Many state ones close on Mondays (5)

14 | Train platform. Watch the departure board (7)

15 | The bill. The waiter won’t bring it until you ask (5)

Verticali (Down)

1 | Espresso, to an Italian (5)

2 | Hi and bye in one word (4)

4 | Hotel (Italians also just say hotel) (7)

5 | Square. Think of it as the town’s living room (6)

6 | Italian ice cream. A freebie (6)

7 | Beach. In August, so is the rest of Italy (8)

8 | Strike. Check for one before any train trip (8)

11 | Train (the Frecciarossa is a fast one) (5)

12 | Main cathedral. Florence’s has the famous dome (5)

Cruciverba 1 Principiante

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Cruciverba intermedio

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Clues and answers in Italian.

Orizzontali (Across)

2 | Lo prendi per andare in Sardegna con la macchina. (9)

4 | Con il cappuccino a colazione. A Milano lo chiamano brioche. (8)

8 | Lì aspetti l’autobus. (7)

9 | Lo paghi al casello dell’autostrada. (8)

10 | Gli sconti di gennaio e di luglio. (5)

12 | Il treno da prendere quando cambi. Se il primo ritarda, la perdi. (11)

13 | Ci compri sigarette, francobolli e biglietti dell’autobus. (8)

14 | Arrivare in ___ significa essere puntuali. (6)

15 | Sul conto, il costo a persona per pane e tovaglia. (7)

Verticali (Down)

1 | Il sabato sera, al ristorante, meglio farla. (12)

3 | Al bar lo prendi alla cassa e lo dai al barista. (9)

5 | Al lido lo affitti insieme a due lettini. (10)

6 | Ha una croce verde luminosa fuori. (8)

7 | A Venezia è l’autobus, ma sull’acqua. (9)

11 | Il regionale è in ___ di venti minuti. (7)

Cruciverba 1 Intermedio

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Cruciverba avanzato

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Clues and answers in Italian.

Orizzontali (Across)

1 | Al bar lo bevi al banco, in due sorsi. (5)

6 | Le consonanti di zero. (2)

9 | I giorni di novembre. (6)

11 | Io, all’imperfetto di essere. (3)

12 | Il centro di dire. (2)

13 | Il centro di pepe. (2)

14 | ___ favore, ___ piacere. (3)

15 | Margherita lo era, prima di diventare una pizza. (6)

18 | La sua foglia è sulla bandiera del Canada. (5)

19 | Quello di Mameli si canta allo stadio. (4)

21 | Ti risponde in montagna, se gridi. (3)

23 | Il vulcano che guarda Catania. (4)

24 | Lui ha il coraggio di farlo. (3)

25 | Animale della savana che sembra ridere. (4)

27 | Lo intima il vigile per fermarti. (3)

28 | Collere, furie. (3)

30 | Quello marsicano vive in Abruzzo. (4)

31 | La a davanti a vocale: ___ esempio. (2)

Verticali (Down)

1 | Le consonanti di aceto. (2)

2 | Le canta il tenore, se le dà lo snob. (4)

3 | Il 15 agosto: città vuote, spiagge piene. (10)

4 | Le consonanti di Fano. (2)

5 | Si trasmette via ___, alla radio e in TV. (5)

7 | Quelle dei pescatori, o i gol nel calcio. (4)

8 | Milano ne è una capitale. (4)

10 | Spritz e stuzzichini prima di cena. (9)

14 | Il contrario di guerra. (4)

16 | Possono essere a pieghe o a tubino. (5)

17 | Piccola macchia sulla pelle. (3)

20 | I sette di Biancaneve. (4)

22 | Con il, in una parola. (3)

26 | ___ Pacis, il monumento di Augusto a Roma. (3)

27 | Preposizione articolata: ___ miei tempi. (2)

29 | La e davanti a un’altra e: ___ ecco. (2)

Cruciverba 1 Avanzato

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Please let me know if you found them too easy or too hard. I’m happy to fine-tune the difficulty level. Also, tell me whether you like the idea for this series in the first place.

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This Saturday, I’m getting married to Alicia. It will be in Canada, but it got me thinking about how weddings work back home.

I want to add the uncle one to this list of 11 traditions. That is the honored tradition of your uncle getting drunk at the wedding and causing a scene. But that might just be my dysfunctional Italian family and not a universal rule.

The following 11 are actually common ones in Italy. The north is more restrained and less superstitious than the south, but most apply across Italy.

1. Never on a Tuesday or Friday

We have an expression for this. “Di Venere e di Marte né si sposa né si parte.” So you’ll find Italian weddings rarely happen on venerdì (Friday) or on martedì (Tuesday). When setting a date for my own wedding, despite not being superstitious, I immediately ruled out those two options out of Italian habit. Saturday it is.

2. La serenata

The night before the wedding, the groom shows up beneath the bride’s window to serenade her. It starts quietly, but once she opens the window, the neighborhood might join in, and it turns into a small street party. Now, this will be seen as a cafonata (gaudy act) by some in the north, but in Sicily, Calabria, Puglia, and Campania, especially in villages, it is still very much a thing.

3. The bouquet is his gift

The groom pays for the bouquet. It’s the last gift to his fiancée before she becomes his wife. (Obviously she can pick it to match the wedding theme, but he pays for it.)

4. No gold, no mirror

The bride is not supposed to wear gold until the rings are exchanged. Superstition also says she shouldn’t see herself fully dressed in a mirror before the wedding unless she first removes one shoe, an earring, or a glove.

5. Rain is good luck

Another expression: “Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata,” which in English translates to “wet bride, lucky bride.” I suspect this was invented to make brides less upset with the weather ruining their reception, but I’ll take it.

6. Confetti aren’t paper

In Italian, the word confetti doesn’t mean tiny colored pieces of paper thrown at the couple. (BTW, we throw rice instead.) They’re sugared almonds, usually given with a small favor called a bomboniera. In the south, bomboniere can get quite elaborate and stereotypically tacky. For weddings, it’s traditional to give guests five white confetti, each representing health, wealth, happiness, fertility, and long life. Odd numbers, as they shouldn’t be divided, just like the couple.

7. La busta

We have wedding registries in Italy, but many people still prefer to bring a busta (an envelope) with cash. The unwritten rule is that you should give at least the cost of your seat at lunch or dinner. It’s a debated topic, but it starts at 100 euros per person if you don’t want to look tirchio (stingy). More if you’re family or close friends. Less, if you’re broke or you’re there with your 5 children.

8. The lunch

Speaking of lunch, the wedding lunch (or dinner) tends to be epic in Italy. Antipasti (appetizers, multiple), two primi, a secondo, possibly two with a sorbet in between, cake, coffee, and likely a digestivo (a liqueur). They last hours and your shirt will feel like it’s about to burst at the seams. Especially in the south.

9. La tarantella

La tarantella is an old folk dance from the south inspired by old tales about convulsing and dancing off a spider’s bite. It is still used in many weddings in the south, often paired with more modern music. In many such weddings, guests will even hold hands in a circle around the couple, spinning faster and faster to the tempo of the song.

10. The cake

Tiered cakes are common now, but the classic Italian wedding cake is the millefoglie (a thousand layers) of puff pastry and cream, often topped with berries. Many weddings now also set up a confettata, a table of sugared almonds (including versions with a chocolate center instead of an almond).

11. The tie

Late in the evening, and certainly after all the photos that could be taken have been taken, the groom’s friends will sometimes cut the tie into small pieces and sell them to guests for a few euros, with the money going toward the honeymoon. (Possibly more common in the north than the south.) Which is why no groom in his right mind will wear one of the ties from my last series if he knows his friends have such plans.

I’ll let you know how many of these I manage to sneak in. And if it rains on Saturday, now you’ll know what to say to Alicia.

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Italy has remarkable geodiversity. That diversity brings a lot of good, as I recently discussed in an interview with Edward Cutler. The downside of such diversity is that Italy’s geology and geography lead to all sorts of hazards in parts of the country.

People who make a living from selling you “postcard Italy” will be very careful to hide these issues. Otherwise, you might not buy the trip or the house they’re selling you. I have no such restrictions or conflicts. I know many of you subscribe to hear the truth about Italy: the good, the bad, and the ugly. And that’s what I provide.

Italy is one of the most geologically restless countries in Europe. You have to contend with mountains, volcanoes, faults, rivers that flood, and a long, soft coastline.

The point is not to fear-monger. You should absolutely still visit or move to Italy if that’s your plan. But I want to give you all the data you need to consider when you decide where to move.

I mapped five hazards that matter the most when you’re buying a house and created maps of Italy, comune (municipality) by comune, using official, recent data from ISPRA and Protezione Civile. At the end, I give you a combined map which includes all five maps to clearly outline the overall risk of a given town.

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Growing up, we took the bus every summer to the nearby beach. Until I was nine, that meant Ostia Lido, near Rome. We then moved to Montegiorgio in the Marche region, whose closest beach was Porto San Giorgio, so that became our summer beach town.

Realistically, both were fine. Nothing wrong with either beach. But by Italian standards, neither was anything to write home about. I have some nostalgic attachment to both, which makes me personally rank them higher than they should be.

And that’s the problem. Ask ten Italians what the best beaches in Italy are, and they’ll vaguely point at Sardinia before stating with confidence that the beach town they have been going to for 20 years is where it’s at.

That’s not how we roll in this publication. When opinions get loud, I like to reach for data and settle things in a more or less scientific way.

In this case, there isn’t an official ranking, so I’m going to create a meta-ranking myself, based on reputable sources, each measuring something related to the quality of the beaches.

Namely:

• Guida Blu by Legambiente and Touring Club Italiano. This one awards up to five “vele” (sails) to coastal towns on the basis of clean waters, landscape protection, sustainable tourism, and overall environmental involvement by the local council. It’s as close as it gets to an official ranking, but it scores towns rather than individual beaches. This is why my title doesn’t say “Italy’s best beaches” flat out.

• Bandiera Blu, the famous Blue Flag you’ve heard of from me and other outlets. You might have even seen it flying at beaches you visited. 257 comuni (municipalities) earned one this year. This doesn’t rank anything, but it’s a certification that tells us something about a given beach. Specifically, the presence of lifeguards, facilities, accessibility, environmental management, etc.

• Europe’s 50 Best Beaches is an international ranking as voted by travel experts. Nine Italian beaches made the cut in 2026.

• Finally, the European Environment Agency, which rates the water at every official bathing site in Europe. It monitors thousands of these sites in Italy, and 90.8% of the coastal ones are rated excellent. This acts as a filter for us.

How I ranked them

To create this ranking of Italy’s best beach towns, I started with the twenty towns awarded five sails, scored by their position in the Guida Blu.

Then, I added a bonus for any town whose beach appears on the European list.

Finally, the water quality test eliminated only one town from the top ten, Castiglione della Pescaia in Tuscany, for having two sites rated only “sufficient,” which left it below the high Italian average. Maratea, Basilicata’s only town on the Tyrrhenian Sea, took its place.

As a result, every town in the final top ten list scores 100% excellent on water quality.

The Blue Flag did not act as a filter; instead, I simply mention when the beaches of a given town have it. This is intentional. Otherwise, we’d be cutting out beautiful coves, punishing the town for not installing a bar and a lifeguard in preserved, wild areas.

The podium

In list format:

1. Baunei, Sardinia

2. Pollica, Campania 🩵

3. Otranto, Puglia

4. Domus de Maria, Sardinia

5. San Teodoro, Sardinia 🩵

6. San Giovanni a Piro, Campania

7. Cabras, Sardinia

8. Nardò, Puglia 🩵

9. Santa Teresa Gallura, Sardinia 🩵

10. Maratea, Basilicata 🩵

(A blue heart indicates it’s a town with Blue Flag beaches.)

Baunei takes the gold by a good margin. It’s ranked second in the Guida Blu, and it’s home to Cala dei Gabbiani, the third-best beach in Europe according to this year’s list. Cala Goloritzè, named the best beach in the world in 2025, is also in Baunei.

Interestingly, neither of those two beaches is an official EEA monitoring site. But their neighbors Cala Mariolu and Cala Sisine are, and they pass with flying colors. So I wouldn’t worry about that.

Pollica, in Cilento, takes silver. It’s number one in the Guida Blu, but none of its beaches made the European list, so Baunei overtakes it in this meta-ranking. Otranto, on the eastern tip of Puglia, takes bronze.

Now, the part that is rather obvious once you take a look at the map above: every single town is in the south of Italy. If you want fantastic beaches, that’s where you need to go. Also, yes, Sardinia is unbeatable in this regard. Five of the ten finalists are on the island. If you’ve ever visited, you won’t be surprised in the least.

I suspect Liguria not making the cut will upset a few people. If you are aiming for beautiful beaches in the north, that’s where you should look. It has more Blue Flags than any other region, 35 this year.

The ones foreigners love

Three beaches in particular didn’t make the cut but are internationally appreciated for their beauty, so it’s worth mentioning them:

• La Pelosa in Stintino (Sardinia) is 10th in Europe.

• Tuerredda in Teulada (Sardinia) is 13th.

• Cala Coticcio on Caprera (Sardinia) in La Maddalena is 19th.

Gorgeous beaches with clean water. They just didn’t score high enough in the Guida Blu to make the top 10.

Did your favorite Italian beach make the list? Feel free to share your top picks in the comments below.

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A quick note before today's interview: starting next week, I'm moving from three posts a week to two, published every Monday and Thursday.

I've published three articles every week since April, and for six months now, my goal has been to dedicate 20 hours a week to the project. Three articles a week at the depth and research level these pieces often require don't fit that budget, and I'd rather not cut corners just to hit a quota.

Monday will typically have the heavier, paid piece. Thursday, the free, lighter one. If you'd like to get the most out of Italy with Antonio, a paid subscription gives you access to every single article, the WhatsApp group, Substack Chat, priority on topic requests, PDF and ePub versions of recent and new articles, extra resources and appendices in data-heavy articles, Linguetto Pro, and the full archive.

Thank you for reading. It means a lot.

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Every year hundreds of books are published about Italy. Most of them are about its churches, its paintings, its cities, and of course, its food.

Edward Cutler’s This Beautiful Country: How Italy’s Nature Shaped Its Culture and Civilisation is about the land that made it all possible and the creatures that were there long before everything else arrived.

Edward is a British art historian and author who settled in Italy. Specifically, in Pereta, in southern Tuscany, on an olive farm. He co-founded the Tuscany Environment Foundation, a non-profit organization with the goal of protecting and restoring the natural environment and biodiversity of Tuscany.

In April 2020, his young son spotted a spectacled salamander in a stream below the village. It was a pivotal moment. That’s a species found nowhere outside the Apennines. It was the rabbit hole that led Edward to something neither he nor his Italian friends knew at the time: Italy is the most biodiverse country in Europe.

His book follows that thread. His main argument is that Italy’s geodiversity produced its biodiversity and shaped agriculture, and ultimately human culture, including dialects, customs, and food. The deep roots of Italian regionalism are explained through a geological and biodiversity lens. Along the way, you’ll meet the pygmy elephants, giant hedgehogs, and vampire-toothed deer that once lived in Italy.

It’s a different instrument through which to look at a country we all think we know. And if you’re Italian (or prefer to read in Italian), the Italian edition L’Italia Nascosta, published by Mondadori, will be out on October 1, 2026.

I asked Edward about the geology beneath Italian art, how Italian scientists received a curious outsider, what Italy taught him, and the fieldwork moment that scared him most. Here’s our conversation.

You’re trained as an art historian, and researching this book took you into the geology sitting underneath the art itself. Green from Monte Baldo, ochres from the Tuscan iron hills, vermilion from cinnabar in the magmatic belt, white from Carrara lime. How has that changed the way you see Italian art?

I think quite often as art historians we tend to look exclusively at the finished product to inspire our thoughts — the varnished painting, the framed altarpiece, the gleaming sculpture — and we launch into our descriptions and the significance of the composition, the novel tricks deployed or the historical context in which it was made, and we lack the sense of the raw materials from which the artist first crafted it. If we aren’t artists ourselves, and are unfamiliar with the smells and surroundings of the workshops where art is made, we are often divorced from the physical process itself, which I believe is essential for truly appreciating the skill and brilliance of the great master artists. By delving into the geology of Italy, it really brought into focus the purest state of raw materials that artists started with — no ready-made oil paints in tubes or perfect pastels and pencils — the great artists of the past had to be part chemist, part geologist, and part geographer to know where to find the materials. Of course the really great artists had workshops full of assistants preparing the materials and there also emerged a specialist industry to supply the raw materials prepared specifically for artists, but it’s easy to forget how much work went into even just preparing a canvas or the plaster for a fresco. Furthermore, given the mind-blowing geodiversity of Italy, it just reinforced how blessed the country was with these materials and that it was no accident that, after Greece, it became the most important and significant location for the development of Western art.

Is there a specific work you look at differently now than you did before?

Not really — I think possibly more the buildings, now that I know more about their stones!

You mention in the acknowledgements that you’re not a trained geologist or palaeontologist, so you arrived as a curious amateur among specialists. How were you received? Luigi Boitani clearly backed the premise, writing to you that few people look at Italy from the point of view of biodiversity. But did anyone push back, either on the angle you took or on a foreign writer telling the story of the Italy they know best?

Probably the greatest pleasure in writing this book was the warmth, enthusiasm and generosity shown to me by the Italian scientific community when I came to them with questions. I can’t recall a single scientist, conservationist or naturalist who didn’t reply to my enquiries within a day or so of writing to them out of the blue. Many of them replied within minutes (unlike literary agents who never reply). I found that biologists who spend their lives researching a single species, or academics who toil away with their research, often underfunded and underappreciated outside of their peers, are naturally disposed to share their knowledge when a curious outsider comes to them with questions. I was genuinely moved at times by their kindness and encouragement, and they undoubtedly sustained my own enthusiasm to see the project through. Besides my parents, it is to them that the book is dedicated — they are amongst the best of all Italians I have come to know. The inevitable question is why it should take an Englishman to write this book. To which I’d reply that firstly, this is in no way an academically complete natural history of Italy, and we definitely need better scientists and academics than I to continue telling this incredible story of the country with greater detail and accuracy. And secondly, this book is very much formed from my own unique experience as an art historian and outsider living in the country for twenty years; someone who is constantly astonished by the surroundings, and someone perhaps with a perspective and eyes that see the country in a different light to someone who has lived here all their life… someone who perhaps can no longer see the wood for the trees!

Did the “why an Englishman” question ever actually get put to you, or is it one you’ve mostly anticipated?

It’s been brought up in conversation, but I’m anticipating more occasions when the Italian edition is out.

You arrived as an art historian and ended up an olive farmer in Pereta. What did Italy teach you that no amount of reading could have prepared you for?

Italy taught me that I can only rely on myself, no-one else. She is a beautiful but cruel mistress and uninterested in whether I succeed or not, so you can never rely on her to help out or do the right thing!

You make the argument that geodiversity leads to biodiversity, agrodiversity, and ultimately even anthrodiversity. It’s a compelling case for geography affecting customs, cuisine, and even dialects. It implies that Italian regionalism is geological before it is historical. How far does it actually extend?

I believe the geology underpins everything and the resulting topography defines the entire history that played out across the landscape since being defined. Isolation in turn gives rise to evolution and complexity, and that is played out in different ways across every region in Italy.

A lighter question to close: you climbed an abandoned cable car pylon on a stranger’s recommendation and got a bat in the face for it. Which fieldwork moment frightened you the most?

Well that was definitely one of them, but I didn’t regret the view from the top. One of the archeological sites I discuss in the book was actually closed the day I visited it (no mention online) but I’d come so far that I decided to climb the fence and visit it anyway. My heart was beating so fast throughout, I was terrified of being caught. Luckily it was a Sunday, around lunchtime so no one saw me. Italy has a habit of just closing stuff without mention, even important tourist attractions!

I found Edward’s book to be rather fascinating and well written. It makes its case with rigor without ever becoming boring. I recommend it to anyone interested in a unique perspective on Italy.

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In two weeks, I’m getting married, so I told my fiancée that I hope our marriage is like the Vianellos’. “You mean the couple where she kicks the sheets?” “Yeah,” I replied.

For close to twenty years, Sandra Mondaini and Raimondo Vianello portrayed a fictionalized slice of their married life on the show Casa Vianello. In it, they acted like they despised each other.

She would constantly nag him, and he would try to get away from her or even cheat (unsuccessfully) with younger women.

After a full episode of misunderstandings and hilarious mishaps, the couple would end up in their big bed. Him reading La Gazzetta dello Sport (the pink daily sports newspaper), while she, all bothered, would exclaim, “Che barba, che noia!” (What a bore, what boredom.) She then would proceed to kick the sheets from underneath the cover. He remained unfazed, used to the routine, perhaps resigned to it.

The show was incredibly popular, genuinely funny, and had no vulgarity in it. It was an old-school type of comedy that simply worked and made the Vianellos popular across multiple generations. (Though they were quite successful before Casa Vianello with various sketch shows, movies, and other TV appearances.)

They adored each other in real life, and their greatest career achievement came from playing two people who couldn’t stand each other on screen.

I grew up watching them and can’t help but find their unbreakable bond that lasted over 50 years awe-inspiring. Their humor, intelligence, and chemistry all assisted them in achieving something quite rare these days: enduring love.

Stick around. At the end, I’ll share a dark humor anecdote that perfectly captures how pretending not to love each other gave away the depth of their bond.

How it all started

They were both actors and comedians who met while rehearsing a stage parody of Madama Butterfly. It wasn’t quite love at first sight, but when it arrived, it broke two engagements (hers to a producer, his to a dancer).

Raimondo was well known for never showing his hand, but Sandra’s beauty and charm changed that. Over dinner with the rest of the cast, he simply told her, “Ma lo sai che mi sono innamorato di te?” (You know that I’ve fallen in love with you?) Then he went back to his cotoletta and carried on chatting with the comedian Gino Bramieri, as if nothing had happened.

They married in 1962 and worked alongside each other until the day he died in 2010.

The real Casa Vianello

Casa Vianello ran from 1988 to 2007, airing first on Canale 5 and then Rete 4. He’d retreat behind the sports paper; she’d nag. The big bed would swallow their oversized personalities at the end.

It became the longest-running sitcom in Italian history by repeating the format to perfection. A simple premise that never got boring or unfunny for two decades.

Couples who actually resent each other can’t pull off that level of indifference and bickering in an authentic way. You need the opposite at home to genuinely portray a contempt that doesn’t grate but comes out warm. Resentment that slightly reveals the loving foundations underneath.

In real life, much like on the show, they never had children. However, a young Filipino couple (Edgar Magsino and Rosalie Escarez) came to work in their home in 1991, and they never left.

Their whole family was essentially adopted by the Vianellos. They treated the Filipino couple’s son as one of their own. The love was reciprocated, so much so that in 1996, when a second boy was born, they called him Raimond after their “uncle Raimondo.”

When the Vianellos passed, they essentially left everything to the younger couple without fanfare. They showed their class and generosity until the very last moment.

The dark humor anecdote

Sandra had lived with depression for years, and Raimondo was relentless in trying to help her out. During a particularly dark stretch, she was at risk of suicide, so Raimondo would not leave her side.

Pippo Baudo, a friend of the family and arguably the most famous TV host in Italy, learned about Raimondo not leaving the house for weeks at a time. So he decided to convince him to come down for a coffee at a nearby bar. After much reluctance, Raimondo agreed to leave Sandra briefly alone to grab a coffee with Pippo.

On his way out, Vianello turned to the doorman and said: “Oh Giovanni, se viene giù qualcosa è roba mia.” If anything comes down, it’s my stuff.

(For context, people in Italian apartment buildings often lower things down from the balcony.)

Think about that joke for a moment. His wife is upstairs wallowing in a darkness he cannot fix. And he cracks a joke about her jumping off the balcony to her death.

On the surface, monstrous. Yet it lands with that foundation of incredible love and commitment, so the dark humor transforms into something tender. He was staying in character as the man who always made her laugh, with a joke that would have definitely made her smile, depression be damned. He was the parachute that saved her life during her darkest moments.

That is the entire marriage, compressed into one line for a stranger holding a door.

And that’s the kind of love I hope to demonstrate to my beautiful Alicia over a lifetime together.

A surprising discovery

He went first, in April 2010, at the San Raffaele in Milan. She followed that September, five months later, at the same hospital.

She had spent a lifetime on television telling him he bored her. She lasted five months without him.

I planned to publish this on September 21st. Randomly. As I approached the end of the article, I looked up the date of her passing to write the line above.

She died on September 21st. Exactly 16 years ago to the day. I’d like to take credit for timing this perfectly, but it happened entirely by happenstance. I feel it was meant to be.

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On Wednesday, I published an article about Italy's sunniest places. It responded to a British subscriber's question about where to relocate in Italy with two constraints: a sunny place and solid healthcare.

An astute commenter noticed that we quickly waved away the south on account of poor healthcare while going into rigorous statistical analysis about sunshine. So this article applies the same rigor to map healthcare service quality across regions.

Italian newspapers focus on the wrong number

Each year, the health ministry publishes LEA (Livelli Essenziali di Assistenza, Essential Levels of Care) scores for every region in Italy. These are split into three scores:

• Prevenzione Collettiva e Sanità Pubblica (Prevention and Public Health)

• Assistenza Distrettuale (District and Community Care)

• Assistenza Ospedaliera (Hospital Care)

Each region is rated on these three care areas with a score from 0 to 100. 60 is the passing grade. If a region fails any of the three by obtaining a score below 60, Italy considers it to have failed to meet the NSG standards.

Every year in July, and you could set your watch by it, Italian newspapers run headlines about healthcare in Italy. And what they usually do is a bit ridiculous. They take the three scores, sum them up, and then write “north good, south bad.” What’s actually going on is a lot more interesting.

Take a look at the three maps below.

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A British subscriber wrote me that he’s sick of the rain. In retirement, he and his wife want to enjoy as much sunshine as possible. So he asked me where to move to Italy for that.

Here is the catch: the obvious answer, “the south”, doesn’t work for them. They need and want the services and access to world-class healthcare provided by the north (or, at bare minimum, the center). And it’s a sound decision, not one I’m going to argue against.

So, I went on to investigate, with raw data, the sunniest places in Italy. I included in the analysis the 20 regional capitals, plus 16 towns that keep getting mentioned in private conversations with paid subscribers.

How I measured sunshine

Sunshine is slippery to quantify. The usual metric used by most is “hours of sunshine.” Il Sole 24 Ore publishes it at the provincial level every year in its Indice del Clima (Climate Index).

It’s a reasonable metric, but it has a flaw for what we are trying to determine here: an hour of weak January light at 14°C (57.2°F) is counted the same as a full hour in July at noon. And yes, some light in January is better than none, but what people generally care about when seeking sunny places is a degree of intensity that you can actually perceive even in winter.

Instead, I opted for a different metric: the global horizontal irradiation. In other words, how much solar energy per square meter hits the ground. It’s expressed in kilowatt-hours per square meter.

It captures duration and strength together; it’s the number solar installers count on when showing you that it’s worth upgrading your roof. Using this metric also has the additional benefit of being satellite-based, covering any set of coordinates, including small places like Sanremo, Olbia and Lampedusa.

The ranking

Unsurprisingly, Cagliari is ranked number one among the regional capitals. It gets 1,757 kWh per square meter per year. Palermo, Catanzaro, and Napoli follow. Trento comes last at 1,364, which is 22.4% less light than Cagliari over the course of a year.

The only way we are going to beat Cagliari is by including places that are not regional capitals. In fact, Lampedusa (an island closer to Tunisia than Italy) takes the crown at 1,880 kWh/m². 38% more sunlight than Trento.

That number gives us the spread for the whole country, from 1,364 kWh/m² of Trento to 1,880 kWh/m² of Lampedusa. The gap is actually huge, but somehow, intuitively it doesn’t feel so.

The reason the gap feels narrower than it is comes down to seasonality. Specifically, how these cities perform in the winter, which we’ll look at next.

Italy is one country in July and two in January

The chart above shows the spread of the 36 locations we are considering in January and July. As you can see, in July the spread across Italy is only 1.25x. During that summer month, Siracusa and Lampedusa match as the sunniest places in Italy.

Milano is in the middle of the July range. And even Aosta receives 80% of the sunshine that Lampedusa and Siracusa get. You only lose about 10% of sunlight by being in Milano instead of Palermo in summer.

In other words, in July, it’s sunny everywhere in Italy.

Where the gap becomes serious is in winter. In January, the gap is 103%. So Lampedusa gets more than twice the sunlight of Aosta (and Siracusa is close, at nearly twice).

Put differently: Siracusa beats Milano by 12% in July and by 65% in January. The north-south gap for these two cities is more than five times larger in winter than in summer.

Broadly speaking, in the summer, we have the unified Italy of sunshine. In the winter, the south is sunny and warm; the north is cold and gray.

The places that punch above their weight

Generally speaking, sunnier places also keep more of their sunlight through winter. So we can look at outliers that somehow manage to keep more sunlight in winter than their annual numbers would suggest.

Take Torino, for example. A genuinely strange case. Of the 20 regional capitals, it ranks 17th for annual sunlight. Yet, from November to February, it gets more sun than Firenze, Ancona, Bologna, Genova, Milano, and Venezia.

Torino is relatively dim in summer but comparatively bright in winter, which is not what you’d expect from a northern industrial city. The answer might be that the föhn wind coming down off the Alps clears the valley in a way that simply does not happen in Milano, 90 minutes northeast.

Generally, the mountain towns hold winter light better than the coast does. L’Aquila, Potenza, and Ascoli Piceno all do well with a higher share of sunlight in winter. Venezia and Ancona do not.

The Apennine towns likely rise above the low haze, enabling the sun to hit them more consistently in winter. Just don’t assume that this applies to the Alps as well. Bolzano is very much in the middle of the pack in the summer-winter sunlight gap.

Venezia has the lowest winter share of sunlight in Italy, at 13.2%. Trieste is second lowest at 13.3%. I have called Trieste highly underrated, and I stand by it, but the full sentence might have to be that it is highly underrated, provided you do not mind the Bora wind and the gray winters.

The Riviera Ligure's sunny reputation belongs to the western end of the region. Genova sits at only 1,477 kWh/m² annually, essentially tied with Bologna and below Firenze. Sanremo, much farther west in the region, is more than 100 kWh/m² higher. So if you are shortlisting Ligurian candidates for the sun and the sea, look at the Riviera dei Fiori, not Genova.

So, where should the British couple go?

In the appendix below, I’ve included for paid subscribers the entire table of 36 entries sorted by sunshine exposure, as well as the full data for the entire year and not just January and July.

To directly address the British couple’s conundrum, that data gives us clear answers.

With the south ruled out, in central Italy, Roma wins a mani basse (hands down). Pescara and Perugia also do relatively well. In the north, Sanremo does best. After that, it flattens fast, and Bologna, Verona, Genova, Milano, and Venezia are all essentially a wash.

Torino doesn’t do too well annually, but as we mentioned, it genuinely shines relatively speaking in winter if that’s the couple’s main concern. In the center, L’Aquila and Ascoli Piceno follow a similar pattern.

For the record, our subscriber and his wife are from Manchester, which gets 942.5 kWh/m². In winter, even gray Milano gets more than twice their sunshine. Heck, Trento would be a massive improvement.

If you are curious, here are other cities in that neck of the woods, plus Paris for fun: London (1070.1), Birmingham (1015.8), Dublin (1007.2), Edinburgh (922.9), and Paris (1218.9).

At any rate, if it were me, I’d shortlist: Roma, Pescara, Perugia, Sanremo, and L’Aquila. Maybe even Torino. Then evaluate everything else about these places, as sunshine is only one factor for someone moving to Italy.

What to do with this?

Now that we have a better idea of how sunny Italy gets and where, let’s briefly make the information actionable. Or simply put, this is cool, but what do we do with this information?

If sunshine matters in your relocation to Italy decision, do two things.

First, do not shortlist on the basis of annual totals. Look at the winter column. It’s what determines whether you’ll face months of gray skies out your window or a thriving lifestyle year-round.

Second, visit your candidate places in winter. Visiting Italy in the summer and then deciding where to move is a terrible way to pick a place. It doesn’t teach you anything about the weather (it’s sunny and warm everywhere in summer), and of course many places come alive for the summer and go quiet in the winter months. Even the terrible air quality in the Po Valley gets some respite in summer.

Visit in February. If you still love the place in the winter, you’ll love it year-round.

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Alicia and I are getting married in less than three weeks in our local Catholic church. It’s a super intimate ceremony, but getting ready for it still involves a series of small decisions. At this wedding size, it turns out, most of them are sartorial choices.

So that got me thinking of Italian menswear. The brands Italians in the know shop for. Sadly, I’ve been quite busy between my day job and this Substack, so I only started getting ready for my wedding recently, which means I’m too late to buy clothing directly from Italy.

The consolation prize is a beautiful floral rust-orange tie from Dion, made from 100% Italian silk by a Canadian company (Dion, founded in 1967). Like me, it originates in Italy but was worked on in Canada.

With more time on my hands, I would have taken a trip to Naples and gotten outfitted head to toe there.

All this thinking about menswear inspired me to write a post name-dropping some grand Italian clothing brands. Today I’m starting with the one I spent the most time thinking about: ties. Five houses, from affordable-ish to the very best.

I’m skipping budget options altogether. You can go to Zara (Spanish) or H&M (Swedish) and buy some cheap “Italian” ties there. Here I show you the nice stuff.

For each entry, I’ll have a Where to buy line because otherwise this article turns into a trivia list. Whenever an online option exists, I mention it for those of you shopping from abroad.

One trend you’ll notice, if you pay close attention, is that good Italian brands perfected their craft at some point and then protected it for decades. They live by the idea of not fixing what isn't broken. The positive side effect is often a traditional, timeless look that’s functional and stylish.

5. Fefè Napoli

Fefè Napoli is not an old sartorial house that has served Naples for decades. Instead, founded in 2011, it’s a newcomer on the scene, clearly inspired by the elegance of the existing brands while injecting colorful and bright prints into its designs.

Still, it managed to quickly establish a reputation with three physical stores (Naples and, randomly, Luxembourg), hundreds of retailers, and, of course, online.

Arguably the most affordable on the list, with many options around the €100 mark.

Where to buy: fefenapoli.com, ships worldwide.

4. Bigi Cravatte Milano

From a modern Neapolitan brand to a vintage Milanese one. Luigi Draghi opened a tie workshop in Milan in 1938. Nearly a century later, his grandson Stefano (and his nephew Edoardo Biancardi) run it from a townhouse near the Darsena. Arguably, the best-kept secret on this list.

They design their own fabrics and handmake exquisite ties. They also make ties for far more famous brands. Their ties are huge in Japan (sold there under the brand stefanobigi).

Expect to spend around €150 to €230 per tie.

Where to buy: bigicravatte.it, or No Man Walks Alone in the US.

3. Calabrese 1924

We are back in Naples. Don Eugenio Calabrese was a Neapolitan dandy who supposedly owned 300 ties and chose one each morning according to his mood. Something I’m lately inspired to do as well. In 1924, he decided he might as well start making his own.

His great-granddaughter Annalisa runs the workshop now, down a long flight of stairs off a street near Piazza Nazionale. Three-fold, five-fold, seven-fold, lined, unlined, hand-rolled edges.

Around €100 to €230.

Where to buy: the Naples workshop or online at calabrese1924.com.

2. Francesco Marino

Ferdinando Marino was a barber who went from house to house, and during the war went aboard navy ships to cut and shave the crews.

He quickly figured out that there was more money in putting things around a man's neck than in shaving off what grows on it. He started a business with his wife Grazia right out of their apartment.

Three generations in, his grandson Patrick runs the workshop with his father Francesco in San Giorgio a Cremano (Naples). They are focused on maintaining the Neapolitan sartorial tradition. Hand-cut, hand-rolled, three-fold and seven-fold ties.

Expect to spend around €110-150.

Where to buy: francescomarinonapoli.it. Wools Boutique Uomo also carries them.

1. E. Marinella

Marinella ties are the holy grail. They operate out of a small shop on Riviera di Chiaia in Naples that opened in 1914 when Eugenio Marinella founded the company. It’s still their flagship and only shop in Naples. (They have other shops in Milan, Turin, Rome, London and Tokyo, plus Bergdorf Goodman.)

Allegedly, when Trump came knocking, offering them the chance to open a glass box on Fifth Avenue, the family politely declined.

In the 1980s, the then-President of Italy, Cossiga, started handing foreign heads of state a box of five Marinella ties. And MoMA put one in an exhibition in 2017.

Expect to spend €160 to €300 for them.

Where to buy: Riviera di Chiaia 287 in Naples, or emarinella.eu. Please check that domain; similar unofficial sites exist.

Two things you may have noticed

The range is small. A serious Italian tie costs between €100 and €300, and that is the general range. There is no budget tier that is authentically handmade in Italy for substantially less than €100. And there are practically no €1000 ties unless you’re paying for embellishments like Swarovski crystals. That €100 to €300 range buys you hand-rolled edges, heavier silk, and a workshop that has often been following a hundred-year-old tradition.

Naples dominates the list. Milan is the Italian capital of fashion, but it’s Naples that has the best reputation for hand-finished and bespoke elegant garments. You cannot go wrong with either, of course.

One practical note for readers outside the EU: Italian sites sometimes deduct the 22% VAT at checkout, so the price drops when you enter a non-EU address. Import duty on your end may take quite a bit of it back, however.

Next in this series: the same treatment for other categories of Italian menswear, then womenswear, then, if the series is successful, more info on how to shop in Italy, the sales, the outlets, sizing, and so on.

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Italian is becoming increasingly anglicized. People use English words when perfectly good Italian ones already exist.

For example, we say "call" when we could say "chiamata." Or we have a deadline when we could have a scadenza. Or location for luogo or posto.

Some Italians even conjugate English verbs as if they were Italian. So you’ll hear people say “ho skippato la canzone” instead of “ho cambiato canzone” or “non mi spoilerare il film” instead of “non anticiparmi il finale del film.” People in Milan are particularly egregious with this.

Along the way, however, we also managed to incorporate pseudo-anglicisms. Words that are technically English but are not used in the English-speaking world the way we use them in Italy, if they are used at all.

Some of these we invented; others we imported second-hand from France, which had already been reshaping English words for a century.

Italian doesn’t just borrow English. It absorbs it, reshapes it, and occasionally sends it back out into the world as something English speakers barely recognize. So here is a list of a dozen pseudo-anglicisms in Italian. In a couple of instances, the English use sort of exists, but it’s nowhere as common as it is in Italy.

1. Footing: in English, the noun means foothold or a foundation, and the verb is “to foot,” mostly used in expressions like “footing the bill.” In Italy, “footing” is used as an alternative to the word jogging. Example: “Vado a fare footing.” (I’m going jogging.)

2. Smart working: working from home in Italian is not working remotely. It’s “smart working.” Example: “La mia azienda non permette lo smart working.” (My company doesn’t allow remote work.)

3. Box: a private enclosed parking space, like a garage assigned to you in a condo. Also known as “box auto.” Example: “Box auto incluso.” (Garage space included.)

4. Golf: not the sport. A knitted sweater or pullover. Example: “Ho comprato un golf da Zara” (I bought a golf sweater from Zara.)

5. Mister: not a courtesy title like “sir” nor a sarcastic one (e.g., “listen up, mister”). Mister in Italy is used for the coach of a soccer team.
   Example: “Questa vittoria la dedichiamo al Mister.” (We dedicate this victory to our coach.)

6. Water: pronounced vater. Short for water closet. Yes, the “water” is the toilet. Example: “Devo pulire il water.” (I need to clean the toilet bowl.)

7. Autostop: not engine brakes or anything specific to the car mechanics. Autostop means hitchhiking. And someone who does is an autostoppista. Example: “Ho perso il treno e sono tornato a casa con l’autostop.” (I missed my train and came home hitchhiking.)

8. Smoking: nothing to do with cigarettes. A smoking in Italy is a tuxedo. Example: “Ho noleggiato uno smoking per la cerimonia.” (I rented a tuxedo for the ceremony.)

9. Fiction: a scripted TV show. Example: “Un posto al sole è la mia fiction preferita.” (Un posto al sole is my favorite scripted TV show).

10. Spot: a TV commercial. Short for “spot pubblicitario.” (English has this one too, but only as advertising industry jargon, as in a thirty-second spot.) Example: “La Barilla ha degli spot commoventi.” (Barilla has moving TV commercials.)

11. Flipper: a pinball machine. For example, “Ero veramente bravo col flipper.” (I was really good with the pinball machine.)

12. Tutor: short for Safety Tutor, the Tutor in Italy is the system that checks your average speed on motorways and can get you fined if you exceed the speed limit. Unlike autovelox, which measures your instant speed, the Tutor uses the time and distance to determine your average speed. Example: “Il Tutor misura la velocità media su un tratto stradale.” (The Safety Tutor measures the average speed in a road segment.)

One final tip: even English words used appropriately, like Wi-Fi or Google, are often mispronounced (or more accurately, pronounced the Italian way). Consider pronouncing them the same way when speaking Italian in Italy to help you be better understood.

I know it’s weird, but somehow butchering English will make you a better Italian speaker.

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For such a small country, Italy has had a disproportionate positive impact on the world. So when approaching an article about Italian things, it’d be tempting to include the greatest hits: Pasta, Pizza, Parmigiano Reggiano, Nutella and, for a bit of provenance controversy, bidet. Or take the angle of its great artistic and cultural contributions.

This isn’t that article. Much like pretentious breweries that charge you $25 for a burger and parmesan fries, “we do things a little differently around here.”

Non ce la faccio, troppi ricordi

So this list will be about things that are immediately recognizable to Italians, but are virtually unheard of if you haven’t lived there.

If you’re Italian, we’re about to enter the land of nostalgia, since many of these items defined our childhoods and had a lot of meaning for us. Even Italian-Americans might fondly recall some of these products that might have made it across the diaspora.

Food, sweets, and snacks

1. I Pocket Coffee: there are two versions: a winter and a summer edition. The winter one is a hard chocolate shell filled with delicious liquid espresso inside. It’s the one I grew up with. Amazing treat. The summer version is essentially a mix of espresso and chocolate that you drink through a paper straw. A necessary travesty, because the winter one melts in 35°C (95°F).

2. Le Goleador: two flat strips of liquorice candy sold in a thin see-through wrapper that somehow was branded with soccer players on it. Eventually they added other flavors as well. It was the number one purchase for kids with pocket change, and it was available in every edicola (newsstand) and tabaccheria (tobacconist, do-it-all shop).

3. I Big Babol: yes, “big bubble” spelt the Italian way. A delicious pink bubblegum that enabled us kids to blow up, well, big bubbles.

4. Le Tabù: liquorice candies sold in little metal tins. They have a very strong taste that becomes addictive. Their 80s commercials were, by modern standards... interesting.

5. Le Zigulì: tiny fruit pastilles. Essentially candy but somehow sold to parents as almost-vitamins that were good for us kids. Every pharmacy in Italy carries them.

6. Il Cucciolone: literally “the big puppy”, a rectangular ice cream sandwich with a corny cartoon strip printed right on the biscuit. It was a crime to eat it without reading the cartoon first.

7. Il Calippo: an ice lolly (typically lemon- or cola-flavored) in a cardboard tube. As you ate it, you kept pushing it up by squeezing the bottom. The leftover juice at the end was the real treat.

8. I Sofficini Findus: breaded half-moons filled with mozzarella and tomato, fried or microwaved straight from frozen. Not a healthy food by any means, but it was Italy’s idea of a quick microwaved dinner. By the same brand (Findus), also iconic are the bastoncini (fish sticks).

9. Le fette biscottate: the English word for this is rusks (twice-baked dry toast slices). Few people I’ve ever spoken to even know what rusks are. These slices are ready to eat and are great with Nutella or jam. Except that they inevitably break if you’re not careful when spreading them. Still, a staple of Italian breakfasts and essentially unheard of in North America.

Drinks

10. L’Estathé: iced tea in lemon or peach flavor, drunk from a small cup with a straw. To date, to me, still the best-tasting iced tea in the world.

11. L’orzata: a white almond syrup you dilute with cold water. Amazing with acqua frizzante (fizzy water). Growing up, it was a staple in summer alongside latte e menta (milk and mint syrup). Many bars (cafes), but not all, still make them.

12. Il Chinotto: a dark bitter citrus soda. This is 100% an acquired taste. I grew up drinking it so I absolutely love it, but most North American friends who tried it don’t like it.

13. Il caffè d’orzo: roasted barley served in a tiny cup. Sort of an oatmeal-tasting coffee that is caffeine-free, and therefore appreciated by both children and adults.

14. L’Effervescente Brioschi: lemon-flavored fizzing granules that get dissolved in a glass of water. Kinda tasty in its own way. It’s sodium bicarbonate, which helps with GERD and indigestion. Not a problem as kids, but adults swore by it.

School and stationery

15. Il Pongo: sticks of plasticine modeling clay used by school children. It never dries and doesn’t require baking, so it’s perfect for small kids. The smell instantly reminds me of my childhood. My fiancée Alicia uses FIMO, the grown-up version of modeling clay that you bake. I bet she would have loved Pongo as a child.

16. Lo zaino Invicta: in Italy there is one brand of school backpacks you had to have as a status symbol: Invicta. It’s not so much that you were cool for having it. Most had one. It’s that you were uncool if you couldn’t afford one. These days, it still exists but is no longer dominant. Back in the day, it was around 100,000 lire (50 euros or so). When I finally got a black one in high school, I felt like a king.

17. La Smemoranda: “la smemo” was a diario scolastico (a school planner) that doubled as a scrapbook. Chock full of illustrations, quotes, writing from famous authors, and pages for your friends to fill in. Each year would have a specific theme. It became a cult for decades among both boys and girls. It technically still exists, but it’s a post-liquidation version that looks nothing like the original, where you could find writings from Fellini or Benigni.

18. Il quaderno a quadretti da 4mm: young children do math on square paper notebooks that have squares similar to those you can find in North America (5 mm in size). However, from fourth grade onwards, in Italy we switch to smaller quadretti (4 mm). Having spent my entire life doing math and engineering with 4 mm squares, using ruled paper or larger grids feels just wrong.

19. Il vocabolario Zingarelli: yes, even Italians need an Italian dictionary. The better high schools (licei) often adopted “lo Zingarelli,” a massive Italian dictionary originally authored by Nicola Zingarelli. By the way, I highly recommend it to those with a B2 level of Italian or higher.

20. I Bignami: thin condensed summaries of everything you were supposed to have read as homework.

Hobbies and publications

21. La Settimana Enigmistica: the weekly puzzle magazine. Essentially unchanged for decades, it’s available in every waiting room in the country. Piero Bartezzaghi (the legendary crossword author) challenged you no matter how cultured you thought you were. There is still a Bartezzaghi crossword on page 41, courtesy of his son Alessandro.

22. L’album Panini: the soccer sticker album, where the real skill was trading with your classmates to complete the album each year. I can still hear “Ce l’ho già” (I already have it) and “Mi manca” (I’m missing it).

23. Topolino: the weekly Disney digest, pocket-sized and thick as a paperback, with stories written and drawn in Italy. Interestingly, despite the Mickey Mouse title, virtually everyone favors the Donald Duck and Scrooge stories within it.

24. Le carte da Scopa e Briscola: a deck of 40 cards, instead of 52, with coppe, denari, bastoni, and spade instead of the traditional suits. Used for the very popular games Scopa and Briscola. At home we used both the standard Italian version and the Neapolitan one (which is also used in Spain). As a child, at Christmas time, I would make a lot of money gambling against my relatives.

25. La tombola: a Christmas bingo on a ninety-number board, played with dried beans or pieces of mandarin peels as markers. Popular across Italy, though originating in Naples.

26. La Gazzetta dello Sport: the sports daily newspaper, printed on pink paper. Bars ordered several copies as it was always the most desired newspaper by the patrons.

On the streets

27. Il Supersantos: a very popular orange PVC soccer ball that was very prone to being swayed by the wind. But it was relatively cheap, and so many families could afford one. Many of us had to play with something even cheaper: the Super Tele, an even lighter version by the same company (i.e., Mondo). These were completely unpredictable in the wind and often ended up under parked cars or on someone’s property. The stereotypical expression of frustrated adults would be “mo’ ve lo buco questo pallone” (now, I’m going to puncture this ball). Few of us had a proper leather ball like the ones used in actual matches. But Supersantos and Super Tele got us playing.

28. Il Ciao: everyone is familiar with the Vespa, and we certainly liked it. But three other iconic mopeds really appealed to 14-year-old kids in the 80s and 90s: Il Ciao, the Sì, and the one we all really actually wanted, the Malaguti Fifty. Often modified with a bigger carburetor and exhaust. All three were discontinued many years ago.

29. L’Autogrill: it’s expensive, but Italy has amazing motorway service stations where you’ll find all sorts of cool products and great food options. Sometimes they are located in a glass building suspended on a bridge over the lanes. Canada has nothing even remotely comparable.

30. L’arrotino: not a product, nor a place, but the arrotino was an iconic figure for decades. He would come with a small truck to sharpen knives and scissors, and fix umbrellas. He would announce himself over a loudspeaker, often using a recording from the 1950s that specifically addressed women to come out with their knives.

I don’t care who your parents are or where you were born. If you experienced even half of these, you’re Italian in my books.

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Everybody knows Italy has deep Catholic roots. Yet Italy has a strange relationship with the Church.

On one hand, the Lateran Pacts of 1929 established several close ties between Italy and the Catholic Church. On the other hand, in 1984, Roman Catholicism ceased to be Italy’s official religion.

It’s the country of endless crucifixes and statues of the Virgin Mary, and also the country that curses God (and the Virgin) with bestemmie (expressions likening holy figures to pigs).

Amidst these contradictions live Italians’ beliefs. A subscriber asked to take a look at the data, and I was happy to oblige.

What made this research challenging is that Istat, the Italian National Institute of Statistics, doesn’t directly ask about religion in its census and stopped tracking religious affiliation decades ago. So I had to tackle it through multiple sources and use the best proxies Istat publishes to figure out the what and where of religion in Italy, as well as developing trends.

On the surface, almost everyone is Catholic in Italy. According to Church figures, about 96% of people in Italy have been baptized Catholic. The trouble with that number is that the Catholic Church tends to baptize babies, and unless you go out of your way to be removed, they never stop counting you even if you don’t practice or believe anymore.

Italy is a country that counts olive trees more carefully than believers. So we don’t really know how many people are actually practicing Catholics, but we have two relatively recent numbers that get us in the ballpark.

An Ipsos 2023 survey found that 61% of Italians are Catholic, 7% other Christian, 2% other faiths, and 28% non-religious. That number tells us how people identify, not if they actually attend church regularly. Plus, it only polled about a thousand adults and was capped at people below 75 years old, and we know older people skew more religious.

However, we can pair it with Istat’s finding in 2021: at the national level, 21.2% of the population attended weekly worship. 24.4% in Apulia and only 11.9% in Bolzano. Istat counts attendance at any place of worship, not just Catholic churches, though in Italy the overwhelming majority of it is Catholic.

1 in 5 attending worship services on Sunday is a reasonable floor to count serious Catholics in Italy. And if we are counting the casuals who still identify as a believer but are most likely to attend Christmas Mass, the number likely goes just above 1 in 2.

Kids opting out of religion class

Part of the Lateran Pacts that Mussolini signed gave the Church an hour a week of religious education in Italian schools, to be taught by someone appointed by the Church (a priest, nun, monk, or even a layperson).

Families can opt their kids out of the class. The map below shows the provincial opt-out rates. At the national level, 18.2% of students do.

The gap between the north and south is wide. In Florence, 40.3% of students opt out. Bologna, Prato, and Trieste are all above 35%. Yet Potenza sits at 2.7%, Enna 2.8%, Barletta-Andria-Trani 2.9%, and Naples 3.3%.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the south is generally more religious than the north of Italy. Sardinia è l’eccezione che conferma la regola (the exception that proves the rule): Cagliari opts out at 16.7%, closer to the north than to Calabria.

One thing to keep in mind is that the class on offer is specifically Catholic. A Moroccan or Romanian family opting their child out isn’t secularizing; they simply aren’t Catholic. So the opt-out rate measures secularization plus the size of the non-Catholic population, and both of those things are higher in the north. Hold on to that, because it comes back later.

South Tyrol is a strange anomaly. Take Bolzano. We said that only 11.9% of its residents attend service weekly, one of the lowest rates in the country. And still, it has a very low opt-out rate from religion class.

My hunch is that there are other cultural factors at play; for example, religious education being part of the school curriculum in Austria despite the relatively secular nature of the population. But it’s a hunch, and the data has no answers for this outlier.

Do religious people have more children?

This section answers the question I received from the subscriber, more or less directly. Do religious families have more kids in Italy?

Demographically speaking, Italy is an old country that is getting older. The fertility rate at the national level is a mere 1.18.

The following map shows the fertility rate at the provincial level.

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Apparently, I can’t stay away from Istat data when I can’t sleep at night. Most recently, I mapped happiness in Italy. Today we talk about immigrants. So this is essentially becoming a series. Subscribe so you don’t miss it.

Many people want to move to Italy, and each year hundreds of thousands succeed. So I got curious about where, exactly, they end up in Italy. This article, which is really a collection of maps I generated, shows you where.

Where the foreign-born live in Italy

When journalists report immigration data about Italy, they mostly throw around the 5.4 million foreign citizens figure. 9.1% of the country. It’s not an incorrect number, but it undersells the real extent of immigration in Italy.

In fact, Istat stops counting foreign citizens the moment they acquire Italian citizenship. So if a 37-year-old Romanian plumber moves to Rome and after a few years becomes Italian, he stops being counted. I’ve been in Canada for 20 years and hold Canadian citizenship, but I’m very much still an immigrant in Canada, as I was born and raised in Italy and moved here at 26.

A better approach to measuring the real number of immigrants is counting how many people living in Italy were born outside of it. It turns out, as of January 1st, 2025, it’s 6,928,045 people. Just shy of 7 million people. 11.8% of the population.

The gap between 6.9 million and 5.4 million comes down to immigrants disappearing from the statistics the moment they naturalize as Italians.

Let’s start with the overall picture. The map below draws a single dot per 250 foreign residents. Gray areas with no dots represent territory with fewer than 126 foreign-born residents.

As you can see, foreign-born residents tend to cluster in Rome and Florence, as well as major cities of the north, including Bologna, Milan, and Turin. The Adriatic coast is also well represented.

Next, let’s divide the map into country-of-origin-specific submaps, using six large communities that are often mentioned when discussing immigration in Italy. The general pattern holds, but you can clearly see differences between nationalities.

Romanians like Rome far more than Moroccans do. Albanians have several foci in Italy, but they love the Adriatic coast (understandably) more than anyone else. The Ukrainians choose Naples surprisingly often.

The Chinese cluster in Tuscany is not Florence, by the way. It’s Prato. The Chinese, for the most part, have moved to Milan and Prato.

So far, we’ve dealt in absolute numbers. A dot gave you 250 foreign-born residents (or 150 for nationality-specific maps). That’s useful, but it falls a bit short because a large city could have a relatively small foreign population percentage-wise, yet the sheer number would still produce a cluster of many dots.

To have the full picture, let’s take a different angle: the percentage of residents born abroad. As I said, the national average is 11.8%. So in the map below, you’ll see anything below that number as a light shade of blue, and anything above in darker shades.

This still shows the huge gap between north and south. Immigrants overwhelmingly favor the north, where the jobs are. But it puts things in perspective, showing a less dramatic split than the headcount map, where the south was mostly empty.

Finally, we have the map of which non-Italian citizenship is most prominent in each comune. Notice again how the Chinese dominate Prato and the Ukrainians dominate Naples. Romania dominates in more than half the Italian comuni.

Where Romanians live in Italy

Speaking of Romanians, let’s take a closer look at where they tend to live in Italy. The national average for Romanians alone is 1.50%.

I think it’s fair to say that Romanians are almost everywhere, with a presence in 7,681 of 7,896 comuni. The largest numbers of Romanians are in Rome (59,401) and Turin (34,353).

The most Romanian comuni are:

1. Pragelato, Turin, 18.44% (130 of 705)

2. Rivarone, Alessandria, 14.39% (57 of 396)

3. Borgoratto Mormorolo, Pavia, 14.07% (56 of 398)

4. San Sebastiano Curone, Alessandria, 13.44% (73 of 543)

5. Rovescala, Pavia, 13.24% (108 of 816)

Pragelato is an Alpine village of 705 people in the Val Chisone that hosted every Nordic skiing event at the 2006 Winter Olympics. More than one in six of its residents were born in Romania.

The most Romanian provinces, percentage-wise, are:

1. Viterbo, 3.39% (10,435 of 307,405)

2. Turin, 3.28% (72,233 of 2,204,276)

3. Arezzo, 3.22% (10,745 of 333,240)

4. Terni, 2.95% (6,358 of 215,285)

5. Rome, 2.90% (122,492 of 4,222,648)

Lowest provinces: Naples 0.258% (7,639), Cagliari 0.330% (1,378), Bari 0.345% (4,213), Sud Sardegna 0.346% (1,141), and Palermo 0.452% (5,413).

Where Albanians live in Italy

Albanians are the Balkan precursors to Romanians. They arrived in Italy in droves in the 90s, ten or so years before Romanians did. The national average for Albanians is 0.98%.

The most Albanian comuni by share are:

1. Lucinasco, Imperia, 16.72% (51 of 305)

2. Castelcovati, Brescia, 15.26% (1,077 of 7,059)

3. Caravonica, Imperia, 12.80% (32 of 250)

4. Tremosine sul Garda, Brescia, 11.65% (244 of 2,094)

5. Santa Maria della Versa, Pavia, 11.45% (261 of 2,279)

And the most Albanian provinces are:

1. Pistoia, 4.11% (11,912 of 289,925)

2. Savona, 2.84% (7,595 of 267,064)

3. Rimini, 2.70% (9,196 of 340,376)

4. Prato, 2.70% (7,003 of 259,657)

5. Asti, 2.66% (5,516 of 207,203)

Lowest provinces: Sud Sardegna 0.022% (72), Oristano 0.027% (40), Nuoro 0.039% (76), Trapani 0.042% (171), Enna 0.044% (67).

Where Moroccans live in Italy

The Moroccan-born represent 0.86% of the national population. The dark spot just south of the center is in the Abruzzo province of L’Aquila, specifically the Piana del Fucino, which is known as l’orto d’Italia (the vegetable garden of Italy). Moroccans have been working those fields for decades. Often exploited.

The most Moroccan comuni by share are:

1. Luco dei Marsi, L’Aquila, 14.77% (869 of 5,884)

2. Gioia dei Marsi, L’Aquila, 12.03% (203 of 1,688)

3. Strevi, Alessandria, 11.82% (229 of 1,937)

4. Sermide e Felonica, Mantua, 11.34% (796 of 7,018)

5. Bastia Mondovì, Cuneo, 11.29% (71 of 629)

In terms of sheer headcount, the top five are Turin 19,741, Milan 9,202, Genoa 6,395, Rome 5,663, and Bologna 4,218. Turin is much smaller than Milan, and yet it has double the number of Moroccans.

The most Moroccan provinces by share are:

1. Modena, 2.54% (17,981 of 708,340)

2. Rovigo, 2.51% (5,693 of 227,134)

3. Vercelli, 2.48% (4,121 of 165,910)

4. Mantua, 2.20% (8,984 of 407,744)

5. Alessandria, 2.11% (8,590 of 407,202)

Lowest provinces: Trieste 0.148% (336), Cagliari 0.160% (666), Catania 0.170% (1,816), Bari 0.190% (2,321), and Palermo 0.197% (2,358).

Where South Americans live in Italy

For South Americans, Germans, Britons, and Americans, I’m using both birthplace data and citizenship. That’s because Italy sent millions of people to those countries. The gap between the two might be instructive.

Here is South America:

If we take the ratio between the two values, split by country of origin within South America, an obvious pattern emerges: Argentina 6.2 born for every citizen, Uruguay 5.6, Venezuela 4.0, Chile 3.8, Brazil 2.7. Yet Ecuador 1.4, Peru 1.3, and Bolivia 1.3.

My reading, remembering that foreign citizens get erased from the stats when they obtain Italian citizenship, is that the countries of the diaspora are all at the top of the ratio. So a lot of the, say, Argentinian-born in Italy are descendants of Italians coming home. People born in Bolivia who now live in Italy are more likely to be new immigrants with no prior ties to Italy.

Most South American comuni, by share (the national average is 1.11%):

1. Longobardi, Cosenza, 28.43% (873 of 3,071)

2. Fiumefreddo Bruzio, Cosenza, 27.84% (1,072 of 3,851)

3. San Lucido, Cosenza, 22.08% (1,636 of 7,411)

4. Castel di Lucio, Messina, 21.46% (302 of 1,407)

5. Nicotera, Vibo Valentia, 20.78% (1,489 of 7,167)

And the most South American provinces are:

1. Genoa, 3.77% (30,870 of 818,812)

2. Milan, 2.78% (90,410 of 3,246,455)

3. Imperia, 2.21% (4,631 of 209,348)

4. Campobasso, 2.15% (4,492 of 209,059)

5. Vibo Valentia, 2.05% (3,093 of 150,516)

Lowest provinces: Barletta-Andria-Trani 0.189% (712), Foggia 0.202% (1,190), Crotone 0.209% (339), Brindisi 0.220% (827), and Taranto 0.223% (1,230). All in Apulia, except Crotone, which is in Calabria.

Where Germans live in Italy

Now that we have discussed immigrants, let’s discuss expats. That’s a joke, of course. If you move to Italy, you’re an immigrant whether you are Peruvian or German. It’s just that the de facto tendency is to call the former immigrants and the latter expats.

In the maps below, the cluster in South Tyrol shouldn’t surprise anyone. That area of the country is culturally very German, and over half the population already speaks the language. It’s a smooth transition for someone coming from Germany.

The national average for German-born is 0.35% (205,965 people).

Top 5 comuni by share

1. Zoppè di Cadore, Belluno, 24.44% (44 of 180)

2. Val di Zoldo, Belluno, 15.65% (428 of 2,735)

3. Terravecchia, Cosenza, 9.57% (54 of 564)

4. Scala Coeli, Cosenza, 7.80% (59 of 756)

5. Igliano, Cuneo, 7.69% (5 of 65)

Top 5 comuni by headcount

1. Rome, 5,595 (0.20%)

2. Milan, 3,493 (0.26%)

3. Corigliano-Rossano, 2,010 (2.70%)

4. Turin, 1,620 (0.19%)

5. Bolzano, 1,257 (1.18%)

Top 5 provinces by share

• Agrigento, 1.91% (7,812 of 408,401)

• Enna, 1.70% (2,591 of 152,544)

• Bolzano, 1.46% (7,864 of 539,679)

• Cosenza, 1.18% (7,896 of 669,535)

• Crotone, 1.10% (1,773 of 161,898)

Lowest provinces: Rovigo 0.10% (223), Padua 0.14% (1,275), Bergamo 0.14% (1,560), and Sondrio 0.14% (256).

Where Britons live in Italy

The national average for UK-born residents is 0.117% (68,938 people).

Top 5 comuni by share

1. Fosciandora, Lucca, 7.04% (39 of 554)

2. Armo, Imperia, 6.72% (8 of 119)

3. Acquaviva Platani, Caltanissetta, 6.68% (56 of 838)

4. Palombaro, Chieti, 6.68% (63 of 943)

5. Molini di Triora, Imperia, 6.53% (40 of 613)

Top 5 comuni by headcount

1. Rome, 5,006 (0.18%)

2. Milan, 3,502 (0.26%)

3. Turin, 925 (0.11%)

4. Florence, 844 (0.23%)

5. Bologna, 560 (0.14%)

Top 5 provinces by share

1. Lucca, 0.432% (1,646 of 381,390)

2. Avellino, 0.359% (1,419 of 395,072)

3. Imperia, 0.320% (670 of 209,348)

4. Agrigento, 0.309% (1,264 of 408,401)

5. Frosinone, 0.306% (1,416 of 462,661)

Lowest provinces: Barletta-Andria-Trani 0.027% (101), Rovigo 0.033% (76), Crotone 0.038% (62), and Taranto 0.041% (227).

Where Americans live in Italy

The national average for US-born residents is 0.094% (55,658 people).

Top 5 comuni by share

1. Massimeno, Trento, 3.73% (5 of 134)

2. Palermiti, Catanzaro, 3.55% (37 of 1,041)

3. Roccafiorita, Messina, 3.12% (5 of 160)

4. Pizzone, Isernia, 3.00% (9 of 300)

5. Sassinoro, Benevento, 2.60% (16 of 615)

Top 5 comuni by headcount

1. Rome, 5,445 (0.20%)

2. Milan, 3,115 (0.23%)

3. Florence, 1,584 (0.44%)

4. Turin, 753 (0.09%)

5. Bologna, 699 (0.18%)

Top 5 provinces by share

1. Isernia, 0.269% (212 of 78,755)

2. Florence, 0.247% (2,442 of 988,068)

3. Lucca, 0.242% (924 of 381,390)

4. Palermo, 0.231% (2,767 of 1,198,738)

5. Avellino, 0.219% (866 of 395,072)

Lowest provinces: Nuoro 0.017% (34), Mantua 0.021% (86), Sud Sardegna 0.023% (75), and Taranto 0.028% (153).

Where the Dutch live in Italy

The national average for Dutch-born is 0.024% (14,226 people).

Top 5 comuni by share

1. Airole, Imperia, 10.03% (37 of 369)

2. Olmo Gentile, Asti, 4.41% (3 of 68)

3. Mombarcaro, Cuneo, 4.21% (11 of 261)

4. Castelletto d’Erro, Alessandria, 3.15% (4 of 127)

5. Denice, Alessandria, 3.09% (5 of 162)

Top 5 comuni by headcount

1. Rome, 811 (0.03%)

2. Milan, 597 (0.04%)

3. Florence, 210 (0.06%)

4. Turin, 151 (0.02%)

5. Genoa, 121 (0.02%)

Top 5 provinces by share

1. Imperia, 0.131% (275 of 209,348)

2. Sud Sardegna, 0.069% (226 of 329,556)

3. Savona, 0.068% (181 of 267,064)

4. Pesaro e Urbino, 0.062% (216 of 349,558)

5. Varese, 0.058% (515 of 882,592)

Lowest provinces: Barletta-Andria-Trani 0.003% (12), Rovigo 0.004% (9), Potenza 0.004% (15), and Frosinone 0.005% (21).

The provinces with the smallest share of immigrants

If you want to really mingle with the locals and feel like a rare immigrant there, these are the provinces with the smallest share of immigrants:

1. Sud Sardegna, 3.53% (11,631 of 329,556)

2. Barletta-Andria-Trani, 3.85% (14,528 of 377,093)

3. Oristano, 4.19% (6,207 of 148,005)

4. Taranto, 4.46% (24,531 of 550,436)

5. Palermo, 4.56% (54,705 of 1,198,738)

6. Nuoro, 5.05% (9,872 of 195,331)

7. Catania, 5.08% (54,412 of 1,070,169)

8. Naples, 5.10% (151,174 of 2,963,633)

9. Cagliari, 5.24% (21,871 of 417,532)

10. Bari, 5.47% (66,760 of 1,219,545)

All in the south. It’s worth noting that the list would look different if we went by citizenship instead of foreign-born. I chose the latter as it’s a better proxy for the true immigrant count, since citizenship undercounts it once people naturalize, as already discussed.

And there are even five comuni with no foreign-born residents at all. All tiny:

1. Pagnona, Lecco, 310 residents

2. Castelverrino, Isernia, 89

3. Celle di Macra, Cuneo, 88

4. Isasca, Cuneo, 67

5. Morterone, Lecco, 32

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A Substack bestseller, Italy with Antonio offers honest guides for moving to, traveling in, and understanding Italy from a native Italian. Three articles a week, with deeper resources for paid members (including the print-ready PDF and ePub downloads of this article). Join over 2,000 subscribers!

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Earlier this week I published 15 Things I Only Started Loving About Italy After I Left. My audience is made up of people who love Italy, so it emphatically resonated with my readers. It validated their feelings for the country and added some arguments in its favor.

This counterpart article will likely be less popular. It is my job, however, to present a balanced picture of Italy that goes beyond the postcard. Once you know the real Italy, you’re well informed and can make decisions about it.

Doing so requires disclosing not just what Italy does best but also what it gets wrong. And as amazing as Italy is, it does have genuine flaws. These might be deficiencies that don’t affect you personally or compromises you will accept for its upside. But here they are.

The lens through which I view these factors is my lived experience in Ireland (for a couple of years), the US (just a few months), and Canada (for twenty years).

As per my previous, positive version of this article, the order is somewhat arbitrary. They are presented in the order they popped into my head.

1. Bureaucracy. Italy is well known for having Kafkaesque bureaucracy. It’s not something that affects you on a daily basis, but when it does, it can ruin your entire day or week and make you waste a lot of time.

Here is a made-up example that is quite representative. You need to submit a form, but you can’t do so online. You print it and take it with you to city hall. You wait in line for 30 minutes and then proceed to speak with the clerk.

They tell you a marca da bollo (a revenue stamp) is needed for this. You go to a tabaccheria (tobacconist) to get one. You come back, line up some more, and now they tell you that for this type of document, you need to set up an appointment.

They could have told you the first time, but no.

So you set up the appointment. You show up on time, still somehow wait, and when it’s finally your turn, with the right form, filled in, signed, and with a marca da bollo, you’re told they are the wrong sportello (service window). Sorry, they don’t handle this form.

Instead, they send you somewhere else. You go there another day and, you guessed it, they tell you it’s not them who handles that, and they try to send you back to the very first sportello you went to initially.

Eventually you speak about this with Marcello, who is the second cousin of an assessore (councilman at the municipality), and he sends you to Teresa at that first sportello, who you already spoke to. This time, she’s ready to assist you.

Two weeks in, four trips, and a bottle of wine to Marcello later, you got it done. The nightmare will wait patiently for the next time you need something else done.

By the way, this is the experience if you are a native speaker. Now imagine doing it in broken Italian with people who don’t speak a word of English.

2. Wages. Jobs outside of major cities like Rome and Milan are quite spotty in Italy. Unemployment is no longer the headline number it once was: nationally it’s around 5.8%, close to a historic low. The real tell is how few people work at all. Italy’s employment rate for 20- 64-year-olds is 67.6%, the lowest in the EU against an EU average of 76.1%, and in Calabria and Campania fewer than half of working-age adults have a job.

But the real problem is wages. Even if you find a job, expect it to pay very little compared to the cost of living. Milan might give you a generous salary of 1,700 euros, and a two-room apartment in a semi-central neighbourhood will eat most of it. Of course, the maglia nera (last place, literally the black jersey) for wages still goes to the south, where the cost of living is cheaper, but there is a limit to the purchasing power of 1,200 euros per month.

This is one of the key reasons why, at the time, sensing that the Italian economy was headed in the wrong direction, I decided to leave Italy. Somebody had just offered me, under the table, a ridiculous 25 euros a day to teach some Java courses (”you know, you are still a student”). The very first job I got in Ireland paid me 25 euros an hour, with benefits, and that was super early in my career.

Wages in Italy are not just stagnant. Adjusted for inflation, they are lower than they were in 1990, which makes Italy the only country in the EU where real wages have gone backwards over that stretch. Italians are genuinely getting paid less than when the Berlin Wall came down.

With labour so cheap, you might think there are business opportunities there. Not so fast. What they get is little, but as an employer, you’re paying through the nose, with each employee costing you close to double what they take home.

3. The tax wedge. The previous point leads us straight to il cuneo fiscale (the tax wedge). For a single average earner, taxes and social contributions swallow 45.8% of what it costs to employ them, the fifth highest in the OECD. At the margin, it’s far worse: 72.8% of any increase, the highest in the OECD. The state is a silent partner who won’t lift a finger and essentially appropriates half your income.

Which means that many try to evade taxes. For every 100 euros of income tax owed by the self-employed and small businesses, an estimated 61.50 never arrives. This, in turn, requires higher taxes to make up the gap.

As someone ambitious and entrepreneurial, I see this as a serious shortcoming crippling the country’s potential.

Plus, this leads to a whole series of annoyances such as places (or taxi drivers) refusing to accept card payments.

4. Tolerance for graffiti and petty crime. Italy has an institutional tolerance for petty crimes that affect our cities. Graffiti is technically illegal but essentially tolerated. Same story with pickpockets. Same with maranza (aggressive young troublemakers) harassing people in public. Parcheggiatori abusivi (unlicensed parking attendants who charge you to park on a public street)? You guessed it, nothing happens to them. It’s maddening.

Here’s a real conversation I had with a couple of Carabinieri (the military police) patrolling a Milan subway station.

• Me: “Just so you know, those people over there are running a three-card monte scam.”

• Them: “And?”

• Me: “Isn’t that illegal?”

• Them: “Yes, but somebody has to report them.”

• Me: “OK, I’ll report them.”

• Them: “No, you need to be a victim of their crime and report it.”

• Me: “OK, I can waste 20 euros.”

• Them: “Yes, but then we’ll arrest you too for gambling in a non-authorized establishment.”

They were annoyed I even asked.

Of course, Italy has more serious crimes to worry about. The mafia is a cancer, particularly in the south of the country. But this tolerance for petty crime never sat right with me, and as a believer in the broken windows theory, I think this has far more sinister repercussions.

5. Merit vs. connections. In Italy, a lot of the jobs (and other services) are still obtained via raccomandazione (a recommendation, in the sense of a word put in for you by someone with pull). In English, the word sounds a lot more benign than it actually is. What happens in practice is that jobs often go to incompetent people related to important people, rather than those who deserve them the most.

On Transparency International’s 2025 index, Italy scores 53 out of 100 and ranks 19th in the EU. In Italy, cosa sai (what you know) counts for less than chi conosci (who you know).

Raccomandazioni are not a scandal here. They are standard operating procedure.

6. No food diversity. In Italy you’ll find plenty of great food. Mostly Italian, however. Outside of the largest cities, your options will be very limited. As much as I love Italian food, I need alternatives for variety. In most of the country, that variety doesn’t exist.

Even sushi places (a relatively recent phenomenon) are generally buffets run by Chinese people. Authentic Japanese restaurants exist but are few and far between (and of course are much more expensive).

7. Italians are always complaining. I’ve said this before: the national sport is complaining (amusingly, I’m doing so myself in this article). Every time I come to Italy, I’m bemused by how miserable everyone is on the surface. I know it’s their shtick, and deep down, they are not that unhappy. But still, it’s a downer for me to see people constantly voicing their disappointment with everything.

8. Italians are envious of success. Italians are also envious of success in a way that, say, Canadians or Americans are not. A little bit of envy is par for the course and very human. But in Italy, it’s taken to another level.

Two lines are fitting here. In a 1982 interview:

“Italians forgive you anything but success.” — Enzo Ferrari

And:

“When an Italian sees a luxury car go past, his first instinct isn’t to want one himself, it’s to slash its tires.” — Indro Montanelli (attributed)

Which leads us to another aspect. Italians are always suspicious of success. It’s always assumed that some shortcut or unfair advantage has been used (and of course, it’s the only thing standing between them and their ability to have the same success).

This also speaks to Italian dietrologia, which is a very conspiracy-led mindset highlighting their distrust of any official narrative.

9. Italians don’t respect the rules. Italians are stereotypically furbi (cunning). In general, they tend to be flexible when it comes to rules (particularly in the south). They cut in line. Litter when the bin is 20 meters away. Feign not seeing their dog pooing on the marciapiede (sidewalk) to avoid picking it up. They drive like lunatics. And so on. It’s actually a small percentage of the population that does all that, but it adds up fast, and it wears down the rest of us civic-minded folks.

10. Italy is very hot in summer. Not much that Italy can do about this, other than installing more AC units, but I personally find Italy unbearably hot in summer. The temperatures are just too high unless you go somewhere inland at very high altitude. This is a plus for some people, but I genuinely struggle with it, so it’s a dislike for me.

I usually go around May and October rather than August to avoid the issue, and this year, even May hit me with 38-degree days in central Italy.

Despite all this, Italy is a wonderful country. It just happens to be a flawed one. Thankfully, if you are moving there as a retiree or remote worker, only some of these will prove to be genuine grievances.

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“Che figata essere italiani!” How cool it is to be Italian!

I sent it to my friend Claudio on WhatsApp a while ago. It wasn’t in response to the discovery of a long-lost ancient Roman basilica in Fano. It wasn’t because of Italy’s recent athletic success in track and field, swimming, and tennis, either.

It was in response to a meme he sent me. Somebody had used AI to animate an anthropomorphic capybara to the sound of a Neapolitan guy flirting with a girl and, amid all the cheesiness and tackiness, destroying the Italian language in the process.

Layers of Italian culture, stereotypes, and localized lived experience, all captured in an untranslatable 15-second clip.

And how fortunate indeed it is to immediately and instinctively get it by virtue of being raised in Italy.

No matter where I am, I’ll always be grateful to be Italian. When I think about it, a smile forms on my face. A bittersweet one, as I left after all.

There was a time when I took Italy too much for granted. I saw the problems clearly. Problems are easy to see. It’s everything else that hides in plain sight. I was unaware of the blessing because it was ambience.

In one of my favorite songs, Both Sides, Now by Joni Mitchell, she moves from illusion to disillusionment, from enchantment to clouds just getting in the way.

She concludes that seeing something from both sides doesn’t amount to certainty.

In my case, the song gets it half right. I don’t have certainties either. But having seen Italy from both sides now, I can observe things that were actually there the whole time, invisible because ordinary, and so easy to take for granted. There is an element of nostalgia, sure, but it’s mostly calibration.

So here are fifteen things I only fully started appreciating once I left. They are not in order of importance. Rather, they’re sorted by the order they popped up in my head.

1. Healthcare. Italian healthcare actually works well. Public healthcare is “free,” if slow, and a much faster private option exists for not much money (think 100 euros for a specialist visit).

There is always a pharmacy not too far away, even at night (the so-called farmacia di turno), and the people behind the counter are actually medically qualified to dispense advice and do so with a palpable sense of care.

I was experiencing some constipation due to dehydration while visiting in May, and a pharmacist spent 30 minutes discussing my medical history and coming up with a plan.

There is a service to talk to a doctor and even receive a visit at home if necessary in the middle of the night (what we used to call Guardia Medica), so that you don’t have to wait for hours at an ER if it isn’t necessary.

Far fewer people are without a GP, though Italy has its own worsening shortage. In parts of Canada, the waitlists run into years. And doctors still do house calls. Perhaps less so than in the past, especially in larger cities. But for large swaths of the country, the old-fashioned house call while you’re sick is still an option.

My late father had a nurse coming to his house to take care of him during his cancer treatments. For free. One time, she came during a storm.

Italian healthcare is not perfect, and there is a north-south gap, but overall it’s much better than in many other countries, including Canada.

2. Art and history everywhere. Italy is chock full of art and history. It’s everywhere. It’s the wallpaper. The background you get so used to seeing that it becomes invisible.

Of course the building you walk past on your way to work was built in 1408. Of course a town of 35,000 people has a magnificent cathedral with important medieval and neoclassical frescoes.

On the whole, Italy is an open-air museum, and you can spend your entire life trying to see all of its art and history. All of its 61 UNESCO World Heritage Sites (more than any other country in the world). And you’ll fail, because 100 years is not enough for that.

3. Socialization over food. Italy really loves food. But it’s not mindless snacking around the clock in isolation. There is a culture of socializing over meals for hours. The meal is the epicenter of social connections and the resulting conversations.

Friends socialize over meals abroad as well, but in Canada at least, dinners are fairly short and often a prequel to an actual event. In Italy, more often than not, that’s the event. Slow is the keyword. Even at restaurants, you won’t be pressured to get out quickly as soon as you’re done eating, the way most North American restaurants tend to.

4. Fruit and vegetables that taste incredible. Speaking of food, it’s remarkable how much better fruit and vegetables taste in Italy, and it’s something I really miss.

The first time I tried strawberries in Canada, I noticed they had a white center instead of red. And they were almost tasteless in comparison. I immediately understood why people put whipped cream on them.

I have a sweet tooth. I readily admit it, but at some point I had to use a packet of Splenda on them because they were not sweet enough. Even tomatoes straight off the vine are sweet enough to be eaten on their own in Italy.

5. Eating out is not a gamble. Italy doesn’t have much variety when it comes to eating out. Few other cuisines are generally available outside of large cities. But the narrow range also applies to quality. It lives in a band that goes from good to exceptional.

Good food is the default mode, so eating out is not a gamble the way it is in Ireland, Canada, or the US (the other three countries I’ve lived in). In general, worst case, the food is still good.

Here in Canada, I have many more options, but the variance in quality is off the charts. You have to be very careful in reading the reviews, because the average restaurant is actually fairly bad (and you’re charged much more for it, but that’s another issue altogether).

6. Coffee as infrastructure. For the most part, in North America we don’t have a coffee culture. We have a coffee-flavored dessert-in-a-cup culture. Bars (i.e., cafes) are everywhere in Italy, and I love the fact that you can walk into any of them for the same ritual, fully understood by every resident.

You approach the barista, have your espresso standing right at the counter, pay your €1.29 (OK, €1.51 in Bolzano), and a minute later you’re out. Make it a $6, 20 fl. oz. iced latte and the twice-a-day ritual no longer survives.

Even at home, coffee is a means to socialize and to see friends. Having someone over for coffee is normal and doesn’t need Outlook calendar invites. It’s a spontaneous tool in the arsenal of making and keeping friends.

7. Pastries everywhere. Every country does pastries. Few make them as well, or make them as available at 7 a.m., as Italy does. Any bar, even an Autogrill service station on the highway, has a selection that in most of the world would take a specialty bakery to match. Pasticcini, little pastries sometimes bought by the tray as a gift when visiting someone, are something UNESCO should take a closer look at.

8. The sagre and feste di paese. This will be my last point about food, I promise, but I really miss Italy’s 20,000+ yearly sagre and feste di paese (town celebrations).

The whole town gets together to party with music, games, and delicious thematic food like porchetta, specific pasta shapes, and other typical dishes.

It’s an event that satisfies your need for company as much as your hunger. If you’re visiting Italy in the summer, don’t deny yourself the experience. Chances are you’ll love it.

9. Walking everywhere. Italy really does have a culture of walking wherever possible. I’ve spoken about this before in my post about Italy being inconvenient. The consequences of being sedentary and no longer walking everywhere have been devastating for my health.

Culturally, here in North America we are much more car-dependent, and in many places it’s genuinely not safe to walk. Of course, you can use a treadmill, go to the gym, or drive to the one spot where people go jogging. But it’s not the same as living in a place where walking is the default assumption.

10. The evening passeggiata. Speaking of walking, I really miss the spontaneous ritual of the evening passeggiata.

Walking in the evening and seeing familiar faces in the piazza (town square). It’s not about exercise, and it’s not about going anywhere in particular. It’s a stroll to get some fresh air, people-watch, window-shop, and feel part of the community.

I have not quite found that feeling outside of Italy.

11. Cheap, fast trains. Italian trains are cheap, fast, and for the most part reliable. It’s an amazing method of transportation to explore most of the country on a budget, and it’s essentially absent in North America.

Coach services like FlixBus and regional buses further extend that range for just a few euros. I wish it were available in Canada, as I miss seeing the landscape fly by or escaping to a nearby city when bored.

12. Cheap flights to Europe. Along the same lines, it’s amazing how accessible Europe is from Italy thanks to cheap airlines à la Ryanair. I pay more in gas to drive to Vancouver, a city in my own province, than someone living in Italy pays to fly to Copenhagen.

I wish I had visited far more European capitals while I had the chance to do it on the cheap. Nothing genuinely comparable exists in Canada. Flights within the same province are often several times the cost of a flight between Milan and London.

13. Openness to chat with strangers. Italians are friendly and chatty people (provided you speak Italian). It can come across as intrusive and too inquisitive, shocking even. Yet in Italy it’s normal, and I wish it were part of my daily experience in Canada as well. I even made friends that way. Those little spontaneous encounters generally enrich your day, and I never thought much of them growing up in Italy.

14. Dialects and micro-cultures within a country. Italy is one country, but it’s really a fusion of local micro-cultures with their own dialects and traditions. This creates a deeply rooted diversity that gives you endless opportunities to explore different peoples, languages, music, foods, and cultural practices.

15. Working to live, not living to work. La dolce vita is a myth. What is true, however, is the stereotype that Italians tend to embrace a lifestyle with a much better work-life balance. Italians genuinely work to live, not live to work. Milan excluded. There, it’s much closer to the workaholic culture we have in North America. Amusingly, I’ve acquired that workaholic ethos myself, but I wish I were much more stereotypically Italian in this respect. The slow life has many health benefits.

I realize six out of 15 are about food. In Italy, it is that important. Also, there is a small chance it’s just me being a fat ass. But then again, no; it’s definitely Italy.

Perhaps I should write the counterpart to this and tell you the things Italy gets wrong and I don’t really miss at all. Even an extraordinary place like Italy isn’t without its many flaws.

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“You say Italians complain a lot. Is there a place where they are happy?” I jokingly replied to my inquiring fiancée: “Yeah, outside of Italy. On vacation.” But it got me thinking about the real answer. I spend my evenings knee-deep in Istat data, and I’ve seen some indicators that could give us conclusive answers.

So I started investigating, focusing on specific indexes that either flat-out address happiness or give us adjacent information such as perceived safety, which could be useful for someone considering a move to Italy.

I generated eight “heat maps” (technically, choropleths) to visualize my findings. All data is based on Istat 2024 census figures.

And yes, I struggled not to title this “Fear and Loathing in Italy.” It was not easy, but I managed.

The happiness maps of Italy

Let’s start with the most direct one: the map of happiness in Italy. The map expresses what percentage of the local population feels that their life is an 8-10 out of 10. In other words, what percentage is genuinely satisfied with their lives. Darker is better.

Overall, the national satisfaction rate is at 53.8%, up from 52.0% back in 2022.

What’s remarkable is that, as you can see, it’s not a clean north-south split. The top provinces in terms of life satisfaction are: Bolzano, Enna, Trento, Sondrio, Crotone. Three alpine northern provinces and two extreme southern ones. And the lowest life satisfaction goes to Naples, also in the south.

Istat split the data by gender, so I poked at it and came up with the same map split by gender. Here’s the men’s satisfaction rate:

And here is the women’s:

Before I pull any numbers, it’s pretty obvious from the maps that men have higher life satisfaction than women in Italy. The men’s map has far more dark areas.

Specifically, 55.0% of men reported a high life satisfaction versus 52.8% of women. A small gap, but a gap nevertheless. In only 2 of 107 provinces, women are happier than men: Ragusa (in Sicily) by a margin of 1.4 points and Barletta-Andria-Trani (in Apulia) by a statistically insignificant margin (i.e., 0.03). Matera is effectively a draw. All other 104 provinces go to the men.

The provinces where the gap is most in favor of men are Genoa in Liguria (+4.1), Ascoli Piceno in Marche (+3.9), Lucca in Tuscany, La Spezia in Liguria, and Siena in Tuscany (all at +3.8). Rich, center-north provinces, not the poor south, as we might have conjectured.

The family, friends, and neighbors maps

Next, let’s take a look at social network support (you know, the offline kind). Respondents on the census were asked if they have relatives to rely on in case of need.

Aside from Caserta in Campania and Messina in Sicily, the south absolutely dominates on this metric, validating the stereotypes.

The national record (93.6%) belongs to Crotone (in Calabria), one of the poorest provinces in the country.

After family, let’s look at friends.

The split north-south doesn’t materially change. At the top of the chart, we have Nuoro in Sardinia (84.3%), and at the bottom we find Rovigo in Veneto (67.2%).

Finally, let’s look at the percentage of people who can rely on neighbors.

Crotone is at the top again (84.1%), and Rovigo is once again dead last (62.3%). The south continues to have a strong performance on social connections, but it’s clearly not exclusive to them, as shown by the Alpine provinces.

Crime and safety perception

It’s hard to be happy or at peace if you’re scared for your life. So the next two maps are about crime in Italy. Not objective crime, which I already mapped before, but rather the perception of crime and safety.

This is the map of the percentage of people who feel safe walking alone at night.

Again, the south (Sardinia very much included) and the Alpine provinces are standouts.

In fact:

• Best: Enna 85.0%. Then Sondrio 80.2%, Crotone 79.6%, Valle d’Aosta 79.4%, Nuoro 79.4%.

• Worst: Prato 47.9%. Then Milan 49.6%, Verona 51.4%, Monza e Brianza 52.7%, Rome 52.7%.

Sadly, the gender gap is massive here. At the national level, 72.4% of men feel safe walking alone after dark. Only 51.5% of women do. A 20.8-point gap, which is widest in the Monza e Brianza province at 28.1 points.

Next, the overall perceived crime risk. Note that in the case of this chart, lighter is better.

Again, Alpine areas and the south are positive standouts. However, Campania and most of Apulia are largely excluded.

Specifically:

• Best, meaning least fear: Oristano 3.7%. Then Nuoro 4.8%, Sondrio 5.6%, Enna 5.7%, Valle d’Aosta 5.8%.

• Worst: Naples 46.3%. Then Rome 37.1%, Milan 36.3%, Prato 36.2%, Barletta-Andria-Trani 31.5%.

Prato is an interesting anomaly. A small province in Tuscany that happens to have the worst perception of safety at night and the fourth-worst perception of crime overall.

More interesting facts

In the process of collecting and analyzing this data, I came across some interesting insights and outliers. I’m presenting them here in more or less random order.

Correlation shows how two variables move together. For example, how ice cream sales grow in relation to rising temperatures. We can use it here to measure the relationship between each of the five variables and the overall life satisfaction reported by each province. Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but we can still use it as an imperfect proxy of how much each of these factors affects happiness in Italy. 1 means total correlation. -1 means inverse correlation.

The correlations with life satisfaction, from best to worst, are friends (0.71), relatives (0.65), neighbors (0.62), perceived safety after dark (0.59), and fear of crime (-0.54). The inversion for the last indicator is normal since we are not measuring a positive, but rather a negative. The more crime you fear, the less happy you are.

Interestingly, friends beat family when it comes to affecting happiness, something intuitive in my experience, but still contrary to the Italian stereotype. (I realize, taken out of context, “friends beat family” sounds like a local newspaper headline.)

Looking at the extremes of the overall life satisfaction data, we find that the places with the most 10-out-of-10 responders are: Enna (24.2%), Vibo Valentia (21.2%), Nuoro (20.6%), and Agrigento (19.5%). The worst provinces for this are Bologna and Ravenna at 9.3%. People in Emilia Romagna are surprisingly unenthusiastic.

In terms of people scoring their happiness 5 or below, Cagliari (14.7%), Genoa (14.3%) and Ferrara (14.1%) take the podium for having the most negative Nancys.

On average, people living in a province tend to be happier than those living in the capoluogo (the capital city) of that province. For example, Turin’s city is at 49.1% on the life satisfaction indicator compared with 52.5% for its own province.

All grandi comuni (big municipalities) are charted below. As you can see, 23 out of 27 have the province outperforming the city.

Interestingly, women report more support than men on two of the three social maps. Yet, despite being better connected, they are less satisfied. Perhaps because of their much worse view of crime. Or because they are slightly behind on the friends one, which strongly correlates with overall happiness.

Finally, I noticed some outliers in terms of shifts from the 2022 data. The biggest improvers in terms of happiness are Isernia (+7.3), Salerno (+6.3), Avellino (+6.1), Trapani (+5.7), and Catanzaro (+5.5). All in the south!

The provinces with the biggest drop were Grosseto (−3.1), Ragusa (−2.9), and Caserta (−1.8).

Only 13 of 107 provinces went down at all. Italy is getting happier almost across the board. Grosseto and Ragusa fell the furthest, but both started above the national average, so they regressed to the mean rather than sinking further.

Caserta is the real exception. It was already the second-worst province for life satisfaction, and it dropped further.

So, what does this mean for you?

If you plan to visit Italy, this has essentially no impact on you. But if you plan to move there, you should at least consider these maps.

You know yourself best and what you value the most, but moving to a province where people are generally happier than average has its benefits.

Or maybe you had a traumatic experience in the past, and moving to a place where people feel safe at night is a better indicator than overall reported happiness.

I give you the data and the fun facts; you do what you will with it. Ambasciator non porta pena (don’t shoot the messenger).

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When people ask me where to move to Italy, I start with probing questions to understand who they are.

Because Italy has everything. You want the sea? Check. Mountains? Check. Isolation? Check. Bustling metropolis? Check. Cold weather? No problem. Hot weather? As much as you want.

So it’s highly individualized work to match the places in Italy with a client’s lifestyle and personality.

Still, for most people, the solution ends up fitting the profile of città di provincia. Places that are neither too big nor too small. Too big and your experience becomes too impersonal. You lose much of the Italian lifestyle appeal, including the person behind the bar counter who knows your order and casually flirts with you. Not to mention traffic and parking challenges. Too small and you start missing key services and entire afternoons, as you’ll need to day-trip to an actual city an hour away to get them.

The framework I devised to find said places is not overly strict. In fact, in some regions it finds too many eligible towns, and we have to apply more ad-hoc filters to make it manageable.

Not so with Calabria. It has 404 comuni, and even being a bit lax on the rules (more on this soon), only four make the cut. Welcome to the south.

Calabria is a stunning region, but its problems, including spotty services, are very real. So I won’t lie to you and present you with a list of 15 postcard-perfect places, which Calabria has in spades. Instead, I’ll be (mostly) loyal to the approach we’ve taken across regions and surface the four towns that are actually workable for a resident who wants to live in Calabria without too many compromises.

Gun to my head telling me to live in Calabria, I would choose one of these four. And yes, we’ll address the elephant in the room, though it won’t be a filter.

What Calabria is actually like to live in

As mentioned, Calabria has 404 comuni (municipalities). They are spread across five provinces: Cosenza (150 comuni), Catanzaro (80), Vibo Valentia (50), Crotone (27), and the metropolitan city of Reggio Calabria (97).

Per Istat, the population is 1,834,646 as of the end of 2024. What’s remarkable is that its population has fallen every single year for over a decade.

The Il Sole 24 Ore quality of life index for 2025 puts all five Calabrian provinces in the bottom sixteen.

Catanzaro is the least bad at 92nd. Reggio Calabria is 107th of 107, dead last, for the second year in a row.

If you drill down and look at the economic indicators, the situation is even more critical than the rankings would suggest. The record for lowest average employee pay in Italy belongs to Vibo Valentia, at a staggering €13,300 a year. Almost one third of Milan’s average.

The same province also holds the record for the slowest civil courts. The national average has proceedings conclude in over 345 days (already a very lengthy process). In the province of Vibo Valentia, they take about three times as long. That’s a preview of Calabria’s efficiency problem when dealing with public institutions.

Calabria has great Mediterranean weather. Its capital, Catanzaro, has remarkably mild winters, thanks to its latitude and location between two seas. In summer, the region gets properly hot as you’d expect from an area bordering Sicily. (That said, pick a place at altitude and your winters will be cold even in Calabria.)

My personal read of Calabria is that there is a large gap between visiting on vacation and actually living there. Perhaps more than anywhere else in the country.

Calabria is also home of the ’Ndrangheta, the most powerful mafia in the world. They run the show here. This has surprisingly little direct crime impact for most expats, and a huge impact for businesses and at the administration level, with the results we’ve already partially highlighted. Not a reason to skip Calabria, but be aware.

More bad news, I’m afraid, but Calabria also has the worst seismic risk profile of any region in the country. The entirety of the Reggio Calabria province is under Zone 1, the highest risk classification possible.

This is not a theoretical risk. In 1908, a massive earthquake (7.1-7.5 on the Richter scale) hit the cities of Messina and Reggio Calabria in the south of Italy (where the mainland almost touches Sicily). It remains, to date, the biggest natural disaster in Europe, killing an estimated 80,000 people.

If you do buy here, the region publishes seismic microzonation studies by comune. Read the one for the comune you’re considering and potentially budget for a structural engineer.

Regarding the language, assume you’ll need Italian. You’re not going to understand the local dialect for a long time, and that’s okay. As long as you know Italian, you’ll be able to communicate. Just don’t expect English, not even the basics.

And yes, Calabria is also beautiful: Blue Flag beaches, incredible food (a dream, if you love spicy food), friendly locals, Catholic traditions, art, history, and so on. I’m not dissing Calabria. It’s a mix of extreme pros and cons.

Two of my Italian-language students from Ontario bought a cheap house here on a whim. It isn't even on the coast, but somewhat inland, and yet they're extremely happy with their choice, their neighbors, and the limoncello they get to make from all the lemon trees on their land.

The 7% tax and shaky healthcare

Speaking of pros, as a region of the south, Calabria qualifies for the flat 7% tax regime for ten years. So any comune of 30,000 people or fewer qualifies for a pretty sweet deal for retirees.

Here is the catch. On Il Sole 24 Ore’s 2025 index, Calabria is the worst region for quality of life for senior citizens (65+). Reggio Calabria is the weakest of them at 105th out of 107. Vibo Valentia is 104th, Crotone 102nd, Cosenza 98th. Only Catanzaro places a bit better at 69th, and that is still the bottom half of the table.

Part of that story is the healthcare performance of the region. Every year the Ministry of Health scores each region from zero to 100 on prevention, hospital care, and district care. Calabria scored 77 on hospital care, 66 on prevention, and 52 on district care. The passing score is 60 across the board, and Calabria is the only region in Italy to fail.

Note that the hospital care score is actually remarkably decent for the south. Still, healthcare challenges obviously exist, as evidenced by the low district care score and the percentage of people seeking hospital care elsewhere.

District care means GPs, home care, chronic disease management, and community services. The staff that truly matters to a senior citizen daily.

The regional trauma network is built on eleven points, which leaves Piana di Gioia Tauro without a hospital capable of serving the 170K people in the area, and improvements there have been announced, redesigned, and ultimately delayed for years. So even access to a nearby ER is not a given.

The good news is that the towns that survive our framework all have an ER nearby, and that should particularly matter for those of you who are interested in the 7% tax deal. But the ER is for the day something goes wrong. District care is for the other 364 days, and it is the single thing Calabria is measurably worst in the country at.

Applying the filter to Calabria

The population filter does a lot of the heavy lifting for us. The 15,000 to 100,000 band leaves only 17 comuni out of 404.

The seismic filter halves the current pool. Eight comuni remain after removing those in Zone 1. The filter removed some major candidates, including Lamezia Terme, Cosenza, and Vibo Valentia.

All eight survivors shortlisted so far are in Zone 2. There are no Zone 3 or 4 comuni in Calabria.

The stability filter, in a region depopulating fast, leaves us down to only two comuni. I don’t want you to have to choose among two towns, so I’m relaxing one filter. I’m setting the depopulation to 7%, which is roughly the region’s rate, instead of the standard 5% we’ve been using. So for Calabria, the filter ensures depopulation at a rate lower than the region’s average.

That leaves us with the four towns below that don’t introduce any major compromises.

The candidates

1. Corigliano-Rossano

Corigliano-Rossano is the third-largest comune in Calabria, yet it’s virtually unknown outside the region. It was formed in 2018 when the comuni of Corigliano and Rossano merged.

It meets all the requirements of our filters with ease: a hospital with an ER, high schools, several grocery stores, Zone 2, and a depopulation rate that is essentially stable by Calabrian standards.

Plus, it’s well positioned geographically. You have a train station in town and 30 km of Ionian coast.

The real estate is €633 per square meter against a national average above €2,000. That’s €82K for a 1,400 sq ft / 130 sq m house. It’s one of the cheapest places where you can buy and still have access to services.

Opt for Rossano’s centro storico if you care about beauty and can live with stairs, humidity, and the need for a car. Buy on the flat for walkable access to amenities like the supermarket or the train station.

The coast empties outside the summer months, so rent there for a winter before you commit to buying.

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If you are a tourist visiting Italy, airports are not really something you need to worry about. You’ll fly into a major airport like Rome or Milan and handle the rest via public transportation or rental car.

However, if you plan to move to Italy, the availability of nearby airports matters a great deal when picking a town. Airports are no longer interchangeable to you.

They determine whether “exploring Europe” is a spontaneous weekend activity or a long journey that requires time and preparation. They determine whether your family can easily come to visit you or if it takes a flight, a taxi, four hours of train, and a regional bus that doesn’t run on Sundays. They even determine if winter feels isolated or well connected to the rest of the world.

You can certainly renovate the farmhouse. Even add a much-needed AC unit. But you can’t move the runway. Location, location, location is a business mantra, but it applies here as well.

To help you assess all that, I generated the map below, which includes the main airports in Italy. 32 of them, across three tiers, from intercontinental gateways to the tiny regional ones that are mostly seasonal.

I left out a few very minor or cargo-only airports as they wouldn’t affect your relocation decision one way or another. (If you’re curious: Bolzano, Foggia, Parma, Cuneo, Brescia, Taranto, Grosseto, and the tiny island ones in Elba, Lampedusa and Pantelleria.)

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In Italy, soccer is religion. It’s hard to understand how much it shapes the country and public discourse if you didn’t grow up there.

When asked what they aspire to be, most Italian boys respond that they want to become soccer players.

Boys, regardless of inclination, will play soccer with their friends. I contracted osteomyelitis at the hospital as a newborn. I wasn’t supposed to live. I lived. Doctors didn’t think I would ever walk. I walked. But my knee and leg have hurt all my life, and even I played soccer. I wasn’t particularly good at it because of physical limitations, but, chubby and limping, I still played.

The old men at the bar reading the newspaper are often reading a pink one. Don’t mistake it for a sign of progressiveness. What they are reading is La Gazzetta dello Sport, a sports daily newspaper which has a heavy focus on soccer.

Italians adopt various forms of national gambling that are more or less socially acceptable and mainstream. For most of the last century, none was as popular as betting on soccer games with la schedina del Totocalcio, a card for guessing the outcomes of 13 Serie A and B games, Italy’s top two leagues. Fare 13 (literally: doing 13) meant winning a small fortune. It became shorthand for a jackpot, and it’s part of why the number 13 is actually considered lucky in Italy.

Today Italians are still overwhelmingly betting on soccer more than any other sport, but they do so through digital means such as apps on their phone, chasing the modern version of the 13, the multipla (guessing several matches but not necessarily 13).

Soccer is genuinely a big deal in Italy. You can’t go a day without someone mentioning it. Soccer players are worshiped.

A 30-year-old local soccer player started dating and married an 18-year-old girl in my high school. It didn’t cause a scandal in part because an age gap is less frowned upon in Italy, and in part because he was (I believe) a Serie C player. And in a small town, that’s a big deal, and it’s akin to celebrity status.

Baggio, Del Piero, Maldini, Totti, Maradona. They haven’t played in decades, and everybody in Italy still knows who they are.

Maradona is essentially a lay saint in Naples, including murals and shrines that put those of actual saints to shame.

In Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” one of the kids asks his brother if he’d rather choose Maradona being acquired by Naples’ soccer team or having sex with his attractive, exhibitionist aunt Patrizia. The teenager, hormones be damned, answers without hesitation that he’d rather have Maradona play for Naples. (Spoiler: in real life he did and won a Scudetto for Naples, the yearly championship in Serie A.)

Italy became bad at soccer

With so much love, attention, and frankly money thrown at soccer in Italy, it’s hard to explain how we became so bad at it.

On March 31, 2026, Italy failed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup by losing to Bosnia and Herzegovina on penalties. The third straight World Cup miss for Italy. No former champion has ever missed three in a row.

We didn’t lose to Brazil. We lost to Bosnia and Herzegovina. For context, Bosnia and Herzegovina was devastated by war just a few decades ago and has a smaller population than Tuscany.

It’s the equivalent of the United States failing to qualify for the Olympic basketball tournament. Or New Zealand’s All Blacks missing the Rugby World Cup. Or India missing the cricket one. Now imagine them doing it three times in a row. It’s genuinely shocking.

Essentially everybody in Italy is complaining about the national team and how badly we are doing in soccer. Get the priest, bad.

Yet, in the sports we underfund and more or less ignore, Italy is absolutely dominating.

Over the past two weeks or so, two European championships took place: the European Aquatics Championships in Paris and the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham.

Across 17 days, Italy won 23 continental titles. As we say in Italy, scusate se è poco (our apologies if it’s too little).

Italy dominates in the pool

In Paris, Sara Curtis, a 19-year-old girl, broke the world record in the 50-meter backstroke. She did it twice, the second time winning the final in an astonishing 26.56 seconds.

Simona Quadarella won the distance freestyle in the 400, 800, and 1,500 meters. Her 400-meter swim broke a European Championship record Federica Pellegrini had held since 2008.

Chiara Pellacani won five diving golds, the first diver ever, male or female, to take five in a single European Championship.

Ginevra Taddeucci won open-water gold in the Seine.

Italy dominates on the track

On the track, in Birmingham, Nadia Battocletti won the 5,000 and the 10,000 meters, the first runner ever to complete that doppietta (double) at two consecutive European Championships. You can watch her 5,000-meter run, in which she is in third place and, at some point, decides to say goodbye to the rest of the field by leaving them all behind.

Larissa Iapichino won the long jump with her opening attempt. 7.00 meters exactly, which made her the first Italian woman to take the outdoor European title in the event. By the way, buon sangue non mente (literally: good blood doesn’t lie), as she is the daughter of two-time world champion Fiona May. She’s trained by her father, a former national-level pole vaulter and long jumper.

And the men won too, in the pool and on the track. Nicolò Martinenghi took the 50 and 100 meters breaststroke. Leonardo Fabbri won the shot put, Gianmarco Tamberi won the high jump, Andy Diaz won the triple jump, and Massimo Stano won the race-walk marathon. Then Scotti, Sito, Soudassi, and Benati stole the 4x400 meters from Britain by 0.03 seconds during the final.

Italy took 43 medals in Paris, more than any other country in the world. It also finished at the top in athletics for the second championship in a row. In total, 23 European golds in 17 days. Most of them by women. Again, scusate se è poco.

Why Italy got bad at soccer

I posted some of these stats in a Substack note, and somebody asked me why Italy, who used to be so good at soccer, is struggling.

Jokingly, I said that we should blame the immigrants (enter the old man yelling at immigrants stereotype). But my theory genuinely has to do with importing foreign talent.

My gut feeling was that Italy has so much money for its league that it just buys the best available talent in the world instead of cultivating the one it has at home.

I’m a data guy, however, and I don’t like to have theories that are not backed by data (even if correlation doesn’t imply causation, of course). So I looked it up, crunched the numbers, and my theory appears to have supporting data.

The irony is that a country that keeps throwing money at a sport is unable to produce a decent team, specifically because of the money.

Foreign players now hold about 63% of all team spots in Serie A. It’s the biggest share out of the big five leagues in Europe.

Back in the 1990s, the Serie A was actually the most closed league in Europe. Close to 90% of players were native Italian.

Regulations changed, and that opened the floodgates. Italian teams sought the best talent they could find around the world, and money ensured they could acquire it.

So a 19-year-old Italian kid in Serie A will now play very little, no matter how talented. Italian under-21s get around 2% of total Serie A minutes, and many will not play at all for the entire season.

Demographically, the Italian league is one of the oldest in Europe. The average age is near 27. Managers are risk-averse and would rather deploy a proven 30-year-old foreign player than a promising teenager who might cost them the match.

In terms of local talent trained in Italy, we rank last among the major nations for money earned selling players. Remember Baggio, Del Piero, Maldini, Totti? We stopped making them.

In the chart above, I placed the foreign share of Serie A players against the World Cup results. The pipeline of young Italian talents simply ran dry, and the results, or lack thereof, eventually showed up.

Of course, money is not the only culprit. There are other technical aspects that are specific to tactics, manager choices, and other factors.

But I contend that Serie A teams have a choice to make each summer: they can spend their money on a finished player dominating the field in some corner of the world, or they can bet on one grown at home. They take the former option most of the time.

The sports with no money

Go back to Paris and Birmingham and notice what those athletes share. Nobody bought them. Little money to invest. No foreign long jumper to import. Italians competing in these sports are all we’ve got, and we must make them as good as possible if we want to win medals.

And constraint tends to agree with Italy. I argued before that our country is usually better for what it lacks than for what it has in excess.

Give a swimming or athletics federation no money and a roster it can fill only with local athletes, and you get Sara Curtis. Give a club a global transfer market and millions to spend, and you get a bench full of foreigners and a native team that loses to Bosnia.

One last thing

If you are moving to Italy, or loving it from a distance, know that soccer is the national nervous system. Maybe one day we’ll learn to fully appreciate all these sports in which Italians shine despite the lack of resources and national support.

For the time being, though, know that when Italy does badly at soccer, the whole country reports that pain.

Right now some of us are celebrating Curtis or getting emotional at watching Battocletti take off.

Just know that at the bar, the old men are still arguing about soccer.

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