There's a little snippet of a story in the newspapers today about Americans being tired of political strife in America and fleeing to live in Italy for a bit of the Dolce Vita.
The general drift of the story is that people are indeed tired of the crazy politics in America and it would appear that some Americans are tired of the prices in America compared to those in Italy.
To return to the software engineer enjoying the Dolce Vita. He comes from San Francisco. To outsiders, San Francisco is meant to be a nice place but I believe that crime has taken over due to the legalisation of drugs. But I might have got that slightly wrong.
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| American woman and her cat living in a hilltop village in Italy. Image: DALLE-E 3 |
Anyway, the software engineer's name is Phil Puleo, 47. He left San Francisco and his $3000 a month flat during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He now pays €850 a month for a larger apartment in Rovigo, Italy, in south-west of Venice.
He says that "It's walkable, safe and coffee costs €1.20 not the $7 I paid in the US."
The best thing for him is that he is still doing his old job but remotely. He is able to keep his American wages which must be very good for him now that he works in Italy with the Italian prices being much lower than American prices where he worked and lived in the past.
The only downside is that he is now a shift worker. He has to adjust for the time difference between America and Italy and he now works from 3 PM to 10 PM but perhaps that is not a downside! It seems pretty cushy to me.
Phil is not alone. Other popular destinations include Lake Garda, Florence and Rome. A high profile emigrant to Italy from America is Kristen Helmstetter.
She emigrated to Italy with her family and swapped her Michigan lifestyle for a hilltop town in Italy five years ago. She cites the crazy American politics.
And she wanted to show her daughter a different way of life. It's said that she is part of "a growing exodus of Americans taking citizenship in Italy to escape the political polarisation and toxic culture wars in their homeland." Those are the words of The Times journalist, Tom Kington. Kristen was able to get an Italian passport as she has ancestors from Italy.
Apparently there are between 16-24 million Americans living in America who can take advantage of an Italian law which offers citizenship to those who can show that they had an Italian ancestor alive in 1861 or later.
Now, what about cats! I've got to add them into the article somehow. My initial very strong feeling is that if you have a cat companion their lives are going to be much better in a hilltop town in Italy which will be sleepy, quiet, warmer, beautiful, less noisy et cetera et cetera.
You have to comply with the pet importation laws into Europe from America. I have a story of an American who takes his three cats from America to Europe on holiday! Brave man. Interesting attitude. Read about him by clicking on this link.
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