I guess not too many have done the dream, spending a bunch of time in Italy, mostly we are just unsatisfied dreamers.
We got lucky on our first trip to Italy, Venice in particular, as we only spent five or six nights in Venice. Before we were half way to Verona, we had started to plan the return visit, staying for two months. We knew that six nights had barely scratched the surface. We have now had half a dozen long stays in Venice, typically for a couple of months. In total, we have spent about a year’s worth of days in Venice, spread over nine trips.
Picking a town for a long stay will always be a compromise. You want it small enough that you can relate and engage, getting a feel for the neighbourhood, and yet large enough that there is enough happening to keep you interested and intellectually challenged. In a big city, it will be hard to find the expat community, the Anglophones, and in a small place the expat community will not exist.
In Venice, we hooked into the Anglophone community via St George’s Church, where they drink prosecco and eat snacks after the service before repairing to the Corner Pub for lunch. It’s an easy way to get to know people. And because Venice is very much a university town, there is a fair bit happening. I am not sure what courses the Foscari Uni might offer in English, but that might be a starting place.
And after a while, you do get to know some local people, mostly on a fairly trivial level. Street buskers, who remember us from six years ago, a woman, Annelie, who runs a linen shop near San Barnaba who we’ve known for ten years. Lou, my wife, had studied Italian a bit and wanted conversation; she intended putting a notice on a university notice board, I’ll buy you a drink, you speak Italian. Annelie was horrified, instead introducing Lou to a family friend, Martina. That was eight years ago, and since then we’ve seen Martina’s baby, stayed with them in the Veneto, Lou has proof read articles written by Marie for journals. In all, a precious connection from a simple request, although not of great benefit to Lou’s Italian. .
With the Anglophones, I had started an on-line conversation with an English woman who was a Venetian nut case, had visited Venice heaps of times. Eventually she, Caroline, and her husband Phil moved to Venice, and that gave us something of an introduction into the expat diaspora. Phil has written a couple of novels set in Venice, google Phillip Gwyne Jones and you would find him. Or take a look at https://philipgwynnejones.com/
So I guess what I’ve written is all about our experience. One thing I do know is that you need to have a fall back activity, something to do when you are totally over museums, churches, galleries, whatever. You need an activity, a hobby. For us, I scribble trip reports which use way too many words and yield not much useful information, Lou paints watercolours. If you are contemplating a long stay anywhere, it helps if you have some sort of agenda, a path, a focus. One time in Venice for me was to see every Tiepolo painting I could lay my eyes on, another time was architecture by Carlo Scarpa, September two years ago was the architecture Biennale, this September it is the archi biennale again, and I’ll spend seventeen nights in Venice, maybe a trip to Trieste. Next May, there’s the Venetian launch of Phil’s third novel, so we will come for that, and stay for two and a half weeks before maybe Florence and some rural Tuscany.
For what it’s worth, we have kept track of the money over several long visits. Apartment living, eating out not infrequently, has cost us about 100 euro a day. Plus rent of course.
Don’t be put off by the people who say that an 89 day visit is not really living in a place. Yes, true. And maybe they are just envious.
