Italy can be told in many ways, surely when living it you can taste the well-know Italian Style a little better, depending on the point of view from which you had experienced it.

Italy can be told in many ways, surely when living it you can taste the well-know Italian Style a little better, depending on the point of view from which you had experienced it.

Each Italian region has unique characteristics, traditions and lifestyles that refer to the natural environment and the intervention of man in that context.

That’s why it is not enough to look at Italy with the eyes of a tourist on holiday to understand what it means to live here.

Living in Italy is “accustoming the soul to feel the beauty”

The only way to renew your gaze towards life is to immerse yourself in the territory and breathe that specific atmosphere made by nature, history and humans and the basics from which to start are simple:

the beauty of the places
the culture and the artistic heritage
food products and…wine, of course!

Yet, stopping to look and evaluate a country like Italy on the surface is a real shame, to understand the reasons why it is worth living in Italy for a foreigner, you must go a little deeper.

1. Beautiful places, beyond imagination

Let’s start from the first point and try to look at it as an Italian citizen. The beauty of our territory is scattered in twenty regions and each of these contains truly remarkable natural resources: from the mountains to the sea, from the hill to the lake, from rivers to the plain changes the landscape and change the characteristics of life.

We Italians know that the sea in Trieste is not like the Sicilian one, that the Ligurian coast is totally different from the Emilian coast (there are well 7500 coastal km in our peninsula), that the Alps and the Apennines are not at all the same mountain, that Lake Garda is totally different from Lake Como or Lake Maggiore and not only for the size.

Living in a city-metropolis like Milan is very different from living in the eternal city Rome, like living in Florence and totally different from living in Naples, and if you move to the province things still change: Brescia or Pisa, Olbia or Caserta have a charm that is not replicable.

DO YOU KNOW that the Italian peninsula is 1200 km long and 530 km wide, there are 121 km between the Alps and the sea, from Turin to Trieste is 480 km long and the Apennines are 1350 km long (from Colle di Cadibona to the Strait of Messina)?

DO YOU KNOW that biodiversity in Italy is the highest in Europe? There are 5600 plant species (50% of European species) and over 57000 animal species (30% of those present in the continent), all concentrated in an area equal to 1/30 th of the European one. It means that in a small space you can find everything.

Everything you want is just a step away: coastal habitats, freshwater habitations, forest habitats, rocky habitats, grassy habitats, swampy habitats, tree habitats and maritime habitats.
Can you imagine all that you can do?

2. Culture and Art: can five senses do the trick?

Everyone knows that Italy has an immense cultural heritage: from cave paintings to the Sistine Chapel, every Italian region can boast works of art of inestimable value.

Museums, galleries, monuments, churches, castles, nothing is missing.

Shall we talk about music? Puccini, Rossini, Verdi, Vivaldi, Bellini are just some of the Italian classical composers known all over the world.

What if we quote Ennio Morricone? We could talk about international cinema and the Oscar won for the soundtrack of “Hateful Eight” by Quentin Tarantino.

And we could add that the Italian city most told by cinema is Rome, in 1577 movies from Fellini’s “Dolce Vita” and “Roman Holidays” with Audrey Hepburn to “The Great Beauty” by Sorrentino, and Venice appears in 287 movies including the James Bond of “Casino Royale” by Daniel Craig and in “The Tourist” with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie.

DO YOU KNOW which Italian cities are the richest in culture?

Rome has 199 theatres and opera halls, 168 museums and 133 art galleries;
Milan has 138 theatres and opera halls, 76 museums and 140 art galleries;
Turin has 80 theatres and opera halls, 49 museums and 47 art galleries;
Florence has 46 theatres and opera halls, 74 museums and 43 art galleries;
Naples has 78 theatres and opera halls, 59 museums and 33 art galleries;
Venice has 30 theatres and opera halls, 71 museums and 70 art galleries;
Bologna has 45 theatres and opera halls, 54 museums and 31 art galleries;
Palermo has 49 theatres and opera halls, 50 museums and 14 art galleries;
Genoa has 36 theatres and opera halls, 33 museums and 10 art galleries;
Cagliari has 35 theatres and opera halls, 13 museums and 7 art galleries.

And then there is the rest of Italy to explore!

3. Italian food and wine: you can’t do without them anymore

Only 5% of our gastronomic products are known by the international public and, unless you have already visited Italy, you will never have the opportunity to taste the original versions of these products Made in Italy.

Neapolitan pizza? Only in Naples.

Mozzarella di Bufala Campana? Only in Campania.

Prosciutto di San Daniele? Only in Friuli Venezia-Giulia.

Sad but true.

Every Italian province has its own unique offer of typical products and dishes, tastes that derive from a thousand-year tradition and that the best Italian Chefs – such as Bottura, Alajmo, Crippa, Romito, Baronetto, Taglienti, Salmoiraghi, Cerea, Oldani – have revisited and re-proposed to the whole world.

DO YOU KNOW what are the top ten Italian dop igp products?

Here they are: Grana Padano DOP, Parmigiano Reggiano DOP, Prosciutto di Parma DOP, Aceto Balsamico di Modena IGP, Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP, Mortadella Bologna IGP, Gorgonzola DOP, Prosciutto San Daniele DOP, Pecorino Romano DOP, Bresaola della Valtellina IGP.

DO YOU KNOW that there are 21 different itineraries dedicated to vineyards and the production of DOC wine in Italy? They are called “The Wine Routes”.

And DO YOU KNOW that there is an organization of women who cook for you traditional dishes telling you the story behind every recipe? They are the Cesarine and have become a significant resource of italian regional food and wine culture.

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