A Substack bestseller, Italy with Antonio offers honest guides for moving to, traveling in, and understanding Italy from a native Italian. A paid article every Monday and a free one every Thursday, with deeper resources for paid members, including print-ready PDF and ePub downloads. Join over 2,000 subscribers!
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.
