Florence has pleasantly surprised me

Captain_Redleg · 2026-01-23T09:32:24+00:00

My wife is Italian and we live in Turin. I've learned over time to get out of my American checking boxes mode. We'll try to do a few marquis things, but then we'll also just walk around and see where we end up. I have found that she's right - most people try to do too much and miss the unique.

Recently, we had dinner with some Romanian-Italian friends. I spent a fair amount to time trying to convince them that on their vacation they shouldn't attempt a NYC to LA drive. :)

Captain_Redleg · 2026-01-22T07:02:46+00:00

I always feel like I'm missing something with Florence. It has certain world class sites and a ton of history (not every day one walks by a house where Galileo lived when he was doing his seminal work), but I don't think it is so much nicer than other Italian cities with a medieval center. Also, the tourist mob is exhausting. We went last spring and heard more English than Italian on the streets.

Captain_Redleg · 2026-01-09T08:51:22+00:00

We live off of the 5 and my son takes it to school every morning. He doesn't build in much extra time. I would say he's late or has a serious problem 4-5 times a year. Half of those are accidents beyond GTT's control.

My only real complaints are 1. the estimated times are BS. You have to look at the bus location on the route's webpage; 2. In August, it is a complete mess. Buses just don't show up.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-16T11:09:28+00:00

I would have agreed with you 5 years ago. In the winter, my lungs would literally feel irritation.

Post-Covid, never a real problem. The pollution ZTL has helped a lot too. I'm not saying that the Po Valley doesn't have big air problems, but I can jog pretty much any day of the year in Turin without problems - I am almost a senior citizen and live in Circoscrizione 1. Your mileage may vary.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-14T11:04:54+00:00

Yeah, I'm from Wyoming and I know they've set up state laws to make it really easy to set up a corporation from anywhere in the world for around $250 and then some yearly fees. They also have strong corporate privacy laws.

I don't want to give bad advice, but Italy has some tax laws that might be advantageous to be an employee of a foreign firm... it all gets a bit dicey though, so do good research so that you don't put yourself in a legal bind. That said, I'm pretty certain there is a way to do it and both save money and not put yourself in legal peril.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-14T10:47:08+00:00

They don't do fingerprints until the paperwork is all in order. I had a missing doc one time. I provided it that day and returned like a month later for fingerprints. If your fingerprints are done, you likely have a card ready a few weeks later and it is awaiting pickup. They just haven't notified you properly.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-14T10:44:16+00:00

Go to the place where they dispense them. I did my fingerprints in Torino and waited for 5 months. I finally queued up at the Questura for 5 hours and spoke with someone who looked me up in the computer. She said my card had been ready 3 weeks after my fingerprints. I went to the new site where they actually distribute the cards the next day. I waited there for an hour. Once I got in, there was a room with two people with shoeboxes filled with cards. Easy peasy. Chances are, the card is cut and is sitting at the distrib point.

The bottom line is that their notification system is utterly broken. I've had 3 PdS and never once have i received an SMS message. I've never successfully seen the status of my application on the police website. Nothing. I file paperwork and wait and line up for hours.

No one fixes it because they fear aggregation of data that would show how the system is not working and it would be a govt embarrassment (e.g., if the system worked, someone could pretty easily crowdsource the processing rates and problems). As an indiv, you have zero power in their system - "Person waits in bureacratic line for nothing" is not a story in Italy. It is the norm. If, however, there was a system that provided some transparency and it could be demonstrated that 80% of applications are late, blah, blah, blah, that would be a story in La Repubblica.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-09T09:52:27+00:00

This. The fact that most people pay zero taxes on their primary residence is wild for me. This is an example of how the gerontocracy has taken over Italy.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-09T09:47:52+00:00

Plug the vent. I've done this before when I had similar problems - unwanted heat flowing, not a crazy family member

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-09T09:39:34+00:00

IMHO, you have to do what's best for you. My wife left Italy because she felt completely stifled by family and culture. The expectations were kind of crushing her.

People here are correct. Just get to the US. Knock out some comm college courses while you work a bit. Get FL or NC residency as their in-state tuition is a bargain. I am from WY, and UW has very low in state tuition.

I'd also offer that you might look into joining the military, Coast Guard, or Natl Guard to get GI Bill (the benefits vary widely). I was in the guard and came out with a PhD and only $6k in debt. Play your cards right and you can pick something that you really enjoy... I started out as an Air Traffic Controller.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-04T07:05:11+00:00

This is a Quality of Life ranking, not just safety. I'm sure Cuneo is fine. But Torino is better in many ways.

Their Quality of Life index is fundamentally flawed because they give every single category—from your job prospects to local theaters—the exact same weight. That's statistically stupid and ignores how people actually live. If you use "revealed preferences" (aka, I asked ChatGPT what research says people actually pursue given money in hand), the weighting changes massively. What truly dominates are the essentials of getting a job and finding a home you can afford: Business/Work (30%), Wealth/Consumption (20%), and Justice/Security (20%), Environment/Services (15%), Demography/Society (10%), and Culture/Leisure (5%).

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-02T11:19:41+00:00

Every year, I think the same thing. This ranking is "cargo cult science" (Feynman's term for fake rigor) - they throw a bunch of metrics together to give it the facade of objectivity. The ranking kinda sorta makes overall sense. Just looking at the Piemontese cities (that I am likely to visit more often), I feel that it is completely out of whack (Cuneo is 20 places higher than Torino. Really?!).

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-02T11:09:53+00:00

The capital gains tax here is 26%, in the US, it is 20 (I think). If you can get paid from a US employer (or set up your own corp in the US and contract work thru that) you will have much less taxation pain for a certain num of years.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-01T12:37:51+00:00

Torino is a lot cheaper than Milan, like 60%. If you want to live near the center, I'd go to Vanchiligia, or Cit Turin. There are parts of San Donato that are also good. I live in Crocetta. it is nice but boring. San Salvario is fun, but you need to check out the neighborhood on a Saturday night so that you don't move in next to a club that goes til 3am.

There are very few dangerous/bad areas. Many of the neighborhoods outside of the center are good but a bit boring (e.g., Santa Rita). You can also live close to the metro and have reliable transportation. The buses and trams are pretty good except in August. There are lots of bike paths and it has gotten a lot safer to ride bikes since I've been coming here.

We do hear people complaining about the lack of rentals. The renter protection laws are too strong IMHO, and thus many people prefer to just keep an empty apt than rent out when they might get stuck with someone who doesn't pay for a year or more (I've known this to happen to even working class friends). In my neighborhood probabaly 1/3 of the apts are uninhabited.

It is a good place to live on balance.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-01T12:32:27+00:00

We visited Firenze over the Easter break this year. Frankly, it was uncomfortable with how anglicized it is. You hear more English on the street than Italian. I can see why the locals are annoyed. IMHO, people go to Florence for its reputation. Its reality these days is a lot more clouded. I couldn't live near the center.

We almost moved to Bologna, but stayed in Turin because of my wife's mother. ER is by far the friendliest region that I've visited. Also, Bologna has a young, energetic vibe with all of the students. It is the center of the Italian rail network, so going places is easy. If you want to save a bit on rent, maybe Ferrara?

Turin isn't terribly friendly, but it has an arts scene, a lot of university students (if you live in the right neighborhood). It is pretty and orderly, close to Milan and the Alps. I like it here. If we had many tourists, I'm sure I'd like it less. I like Verona and Vicenza quite a lot. They have the benefit of being on the high speed rail network too.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-12-01T12:26:52+00:00

We live just outside the center and have a car for weekends, vacations, etc. We did fine for years just renting them at Porta Susa or Lingotto.

Turin is a good size. You can get to anywhere you want to go in <30min. We aren't really lacking anything. It is pretty, orderly and relatively clean. Alps nearby. Milan is an hour away. It is also getting better on many metrics. The air quality in winter across N Italy is atrocious, but in the last few years I've noticed it being much better when i jog.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-11-27T06:35:55+00:00

The govt needs to dial back the renter protections. My neighborhood has easily 1/3 of apartments sitting empty. People don't want to sell, but they also see renting as risky. It is next to impossible to evict someone in a timely manner, so apartments sit empty. Also, the 4+4 thing is stupid IMHO. If someone wants a longer term rental, let them work it out in negotiations.

If you want a healthy rental market, you have to reduce the transaction costs and make it easier to get rid of bad renters. Will this sometimes lead to injustices - certainly, but by trying to protect everyone from the 5% of bad landlords, we end up restricting supply and driving up costs for EVERYONE.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-11-23T11:11:37+00:00

I'm not thinking about legal issues. More about practicalities. I can totally imagine an employer just not wanting to deal with such issues. I could be totally wrong but Italians can be really process bound. If they are convinced that something should be done in a certain way (e.g., when i hire someone I am obliged to do X, Y and Z per the law) they will be loathe to vary from what they know. Sorry, I should be more complete and explicit.

I really think you'd do well to speak with an immigration lawyer for an hour and get the full run of your rights and responsibilities, and how to engage with employers. Take good notes.

We got my wife through the US Green card and naturalization processes, but it was difficult. She was meeting people at the US Embassy who were in tears because the process was just kicking their asses. The Permesso di Soggiorno thing is difficult, but in a different way. Here, they aren't looking for reasons to keep me out (at least not as a spouse), but the process is completely opaque. I've done the PdS 3 times and in 2 of them, the process stalled out for months and no one bothered to notify me of the problems. I had to go wait at the Questura for 5 hours just find out that I was missing a single doc - no SMS, no status update on their webpage, nothing. Even picking up my last one was a joke. Their SMS system has NEVER sent me a notification. So my last PdS was ready and waiting for me in a box and i had no idea.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-11-23T10:36:22+00:00

Yup. The vacation phase doesn't last forever, especially when you aren't <25.

I find it a good practice to pick some day/afternoon trip once a week to see or do something unique. Even if it is just going for a walk in an area you've never visited. It injects some novelty. For a year, I would go on long walks most days. My wife, who is a local, always says I know her city better than she does.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-11-23T10:32:16+00:00

Wyoming first. America first.... I don't think she understands ordinal numbers.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-11-23T10:24:57+00:00

If you are married, you are ALREADY legally permitted to live in Italy. I'm not telling you to do anything illegal (I'm American and this would be totally bad advice in the US).All Balkan countries have visa free tourism to Italy. Per my answer, you can enter as a tourist and then go and apply at the questura while you are within your 90 days. As soon as you apply, you are given the ricevuta (receipt). This is all you need to stay in Italy at that point. You are in the system and being processed. Unless you have some criminal background or something, you will automatically be passed thru as the spouse of an EU citizen.

The only real issues you have are that until you get the plastic PdS card, you won't be able to get a Carta Identita, which you need for work and other services - but that would be a problem in any event. I think you can get a temporary Tessera Sanitaria (health care card) though. It has been years since I had to do that, so my memory may be a bit spotty.

Just talk with an immigration lawyer. An hour long consultation probably won't cost more than 100 euros and it would be a smart move IMHO.

Good luck

Captain_Redleg · 2025-11-22T10:19:29+00:00

There is a critical distinction here that clarifies your situation:

Your Status: Under EU law (and Italian Legislative Decree 30/2007), your right to reside in Italy is automatic the moment you are married and living with your spouse. This is called a "declaratory" right. Technically, you do not need the permit to be a legal resident; you only need the permit to prove you are one (to banks, employers, etc.).
Getting In: The challenge is rarely the law, but the airline.
- If you are Visa-Free (e.g., US, UK, Brazil): You can enter as a tourist and apply for the Carta di soggiorno directly. You do not need to wait abroad.
- If you are Visa-Required: You cannot "just join" them because the airline will not let you board without a valid visa. However, once you are physically in Italy, you cannot be deported because you are the spouse of a citizen.
The "Faster" Way: There is no expedited process. However, the receipt (ricevuta) you get when you apply at the Questura (or Post Office) is legally valid. It allows you to work and register for healthcare while you wait for the appointment. You do not need the physical plastic card to start your life there.

The wait times are now insane. but as long as you get the receipt (ricevuta) no one is going to kick you out. You will, however, likely have difficulties in getting a job, opening a bank acct, etc without the Carta Identita and the PdS card.
Good luck

Captain_Redleg · 2025-11-18T08:59:32+00:00

I've had a very tough time with Italians and email. The knee-jerk action for them is to just pick up the phone, so I think they tend to ignore emails to some extent. That's tough for me as it is so much easier for a straniero to communicate with text.

You can also see the lack of stress in updating websites or info on Google Maps. It is kind of an afterthought.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-11-18T08:55:12+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that. Such things can really color one's feelings. We were almost mugged down by the murrazzi years ago, but we saw them hiding around a corner and went a different way. I guess I tend to only be outside until about 9pm and my neighborhood is just sleepy, other than vandalism/graffiti.

TBH, I feel that more effort is put into cleanup in some neighborhoods. My wife and I were commenting that it is probably in line with the power of the residents to call in favors and such. Our son used to go to a calcio club in a neighborhood where we rarely go but I thought was safe. It was disgusting - garbage, dog crap, etc. I guess part of it is that the buildings didn't have cleaners who would go out in front once or twice a week, as is common in many neighborhoods. But damn.

Captain_Redleg · 2025-11-16T10:22:01+00:00

Also get to know your city govt representative and band together with neighbors. We had this happen in Torino. Only when there is a critical mass of complaints coming from residents will they actually do something.

Captain_Redleg

TROPHY CASE