Possible move to Italy information needed...........Please!!

[jmg1]

I am considering moving to Italy for a year and staying if it works out. As some of you know I am a single Dad with 3 children under five and 2 dogs. I have Pet Passports for the Dogs.
I need help/advice on oraganising the following:

1. Recommendations on which part of the country to go to and how to find a 5 or 6 bedroom house to Rent for one year. Rental about £2k per month.

2. Two people to provide practical help, like au pairs who could live in, who can speak italian.

3. Best way to start learning Italian before I go, I am not good at languages!

Thank you in advance.

Message withdrawn

Ciao jmg1, I live in Italy 1 and 1/2 years ago and can highly recommend it. I live in Venice which is fab but to be honest it's not the easiest place to live and there's not a huge amount for kids to do. I would choose to live in the north, Rome upwards unless you really like the heat. Are you planning to work? DS is 4 and is in asilo (nursery school) which he loves, he couldn't speak a word of Italian before he came (nor could I) although he could speak Portuguese which has clearly helped a lot. I believe that all kids stay in nursery until the September they are 6 although I think a law has been introduced allowing you to put your child in school in the September they are 5 if you want. There are websites in which you can find au pairs and nannys but can't really offer much advice there as the only nannies I know here are all Australian! The people here are very friendly and love kids so I would say, choose a smallish town, come over for a holiday and arrange a rental once you are here, don't panic about the language too much and just enjoy - it's very easy!

collision, as you are in a small village I am right in thinking the school is Italian speaking only?

there is a school called 'reggio emilia' voted one of the top 10 best schools in the world in time magazine. info here am soooo jealous - my husband and i fell in love in italy painting frescoes - magical place!

spacemonkey, could I buy that course from a typical high street store such as WHSmith?

shrub,

Our International School Early Years section uses Reggio Emilia as a model and has sent teachers down there on viewings. As I understand it, there is a collection of public nursery schools which function in a very child led, interactive way. Don't know how easy it would be to gain entry as an outsider though.

here it is jmg

I have seen it in WHSmith also but amazon has it at a very good price (I think it's normally nearer £70)

Michel Thomas' teaching style is great - there is no written work, you just listen to the CDs and repeat. Highly recommended!

hello jmg1

If I were you I would stay somewhere in the centre, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria, Lazio, Marche are all good places to live.

Yoiu will probably need to live closer to some of the larger towns if you want English schools. As far as I know there is none in Umbria for example.

Re aupairs, lots of people I know in Italy use 'nannies' for childcare, but they tend to be eastern european, non qualified ladies who work for quite small wages and will do just about everything (cleaning, cooking, childcare, etc), in general they're v. good and hardworking, but people find them by word of mouth as far as I know.
re house, it may not be easy to find as Italians live in flats mostly, or villas when theyc an afford it, but you might be lucky. If I were you I'd go and explore a few places before making any decisions, and if you cna get someone who can help you with tghe language when house hunting it's preferable as in some places people may take advantage of foreigners who don't speak italian, especially if v popular like Tuscany

best of luck!!!

Sorry I wasn't much help, I am Italian but don't know much about practicalities for moving there.

If Umbria is of interest I may be able to put you in contact with a British chap there who amongst other things acts as a fixer for people moving into the area - he can do all the dealings with authorities and sort out practicalities for you. Drop me an email if interested jmg - [email protected]

I think finding where the Bilingual schools are is a key issue??

I know of some Relocation companies who help people moving to London but have no idea of any who can help with moving to Italy??

spacemonkey, i will get that course at least it is a starting point for the language!

I will contact everyone who suggests it but initially will keep posting on here to keep the thread alive.

Italy, Australia and France are Countries I have really liked. Australia is too far really and I found the Italians were much more helpful and friendly especially with my poor attempts at speaking the relative language. Oh and Italian food is the best.

1991 - We were driving to do a job in Palermo and stopped at an Auto Strada services, a car parked next to us and before we knew it the family were offering us wine and food, I was blown away and just could not imagine anything like that happening on the M1!

My degree was in French & Spanish rather than Italian but here are some general tips for learning a new language:

• Evening classes can be useful for conversational Italian, although this will depend on how much time you have.

• Subscribe to an Italian language TV channel so that you can get used to hearing spoken Italian. News programmes are good but if all else fails you can always watch/listen to Italian footie.

• Tune your radio in to an Italian station.

• Advertise for help. Often foreign students in this country will be looking to make some extra money while they're here.

• Have a look at Italian language newspapers/magazines. You can usually find these in WHSmith although they are a bit more expensive than the price you would pay in Italy.

my top tip : listen to Italian opera and learn the words

I read once that bernard levin got by in italy entirely on snippets from Rossini!

jmg1, is a bilingual school so necessary if your kids are so young and you're only planning to be there for a year or few years at the most? I ask only because when I was about 5, we lived abroad and the nearest school was an Italian one, so my parents sent me there - I became fluent in Italian very quickly and apparenly settled well. Didn't seem to impede my schooling back in England.

If bilingual schools aren't an issue then it opens up a much wider choice of places (which may not be a good thing when it comes to narrowing the options!). I've had great times in Italy and despite having spent so much time there and know what Italians are like with children, when I took dd there at about 11 months, I was still taken aback by the extent to which she was cooed over by anyone and everyone.

If it was me, I'd try for somewhere with relatively decent access to an airport, and would also try and choose somewhere that wasn't a major tourist destination as it could get overrun in the summer.

HTH

LOL SM! I'm not sure if jmg is quite ready to sing his way across Italy, but you never know.

Ahem...sorry jmg. Back to the serious bits (of the thread).

ct, it could be a new thread 'one man and three babies busk across Italy'

And don't forget your doggy 'chorus'!

I agree with Crumpet......I dont think that you necessarily need to put the children into bi lingual schools as they pick up the language so quickly and they are so young. Although we are in a small village the schools are excellent here and we are half an hour from Siena, 1 hour from Florence and we fly from Pisa with BA or Ryanair.

Househunting wouldnt be a problem here at all I dont think......let me know if you want more info.

I feel guilty that they will be leaving their schools/nursery here and the associated security and to put them straight into an Italiam speaking school/nursery seems a bit harsh. Maybe they would adapt quickly because they are so young!

collision, if it is easy for you to find out what sort of house I could rent for about £2.5k per month not a holiday Let (more expensive) but a 12 month lease.

spacemonkey, Umbria is an option, not sure which hpart of Italy to go. I know there are lots of firms dealing in Holiday Lets, I do not know how to find long term Rental properties though. I remember when I was in Italy in the early 90's Estate Agent were a rare breed compared to in this country.

I think this is worth giving a try, it would be very hard Re the actual move and in the beginning but hopefully things would be better in the long run.
Would you agree it is better to try while the children are young and maybe come back, rather than try when the children are much older or not try at all?