The Art of Building a Life in Italy

Photo courtesy of Amy Fees.

Do you dream of living in Italy?

People flock to Italy for good reason. Beauty abounds and you don’t have to venture far to have your jaw dropping at yet another spectacular view or unique experience. Passion for art, for food, for family, for romance are in no short supply. Yes, living in Italy can pay handsome dividends for quality of life.

I’ve been living in Italy for eight years, and the adventures (and lessons) keep coming. In the first couple years of ItalyWise, I focused a great deal on the logistics required to make the move and what can be a rather daunting bureaucratic and inconsistently applied process. But, so much has changed that I’ve chosen to leave those technicalities to sources that offer true, reliable expertise. My focus now is on learning and embracing the Italian culture and its language (they’re inextricably intertwined). I won’t kid you, the learning curve can be steep and the temptation to veer back to one’s native cultural conditioning and behaviors can be significant. But if you don’t become an eager and hardworking student of all things Italian (and not some Hollywood version of them) you’ll surely be missing out. Why come to such an amazing country to end up living only on the surface?

My goal is to share my experiences and cheer you along in what I consider to be a very worthy endeavor. Italy has its paradoxes and complexities, and learning to love and live with them is important, in my opinion, for building a beautiful life in Italy.

As an artist and photographer, much of my storytelling is done visually. In addition to blog posts, you’ll find galleries of my work.

Thanks for visiting ItalyWise. I hope you’ll become a subscriber and enjoy the journey.

Jed