I see a lot of these types of questions on travel and relocation forums, etc. "What can I mail to Italy?" or "Can I mail things to Italy?". You can - but the Italian postal service is rather notorious for being slow, or never delivering at all (first class mail, letters, etc. are usually fine - it is the packages you have to worry about). Here is the official list of things you can not send (prohibited!) in the mail from the USPS:
Knight Frank has been present in Italy through its associate Chianti Estates since 1994. Looking back to those early days, Bill Thomson, previously head of Chianti Estates and now chairman of the Knight Frank Italian Network says at the time it felt like we had missed the boat of foreigners buying in Tuscany, when actually our timing was spot on, as the market was really starting to develop.
Wanted In Rome reports:
"According to recently released figures, the cost of rents for housing in Italy has more than doubled since 1999. ...Rome and Florence emerged as the cities with the greatest rise in rents over the last 4 years, bringing the increase over the period studied up 128 percent. The percentage of families living in rented housing in Italy has decreased from 20.3 percent in 2004 to 18.7 percent, indicating that increasing rent prices have created a situation where many families find it economically more feasible to purchase a property with monthly payments on long-term mortgages."
Last year I studied for about a month at the "Italian in Florence" language school at Centro Internazionale Studenti "Giorgio La Pira". It was a great beginner course, held Monday through Thursday from 9-11am.
Last Thursday we got our Carte D'Itdentita here in Florence. Until now we've used our Certificato di Residenza as proof that we live here - and it's worked fine for most purposes. But we just bought a car from a friend, and were unable to make the transaction with only the Certificate of Residency - we needed the Carta d'Identita.
This year we took the long way home. In the spring we bought round-trip tickets from Paris to Newark on Air India, because the tickets seemed like a bargain and we wanted a stop in Paris anyway. We also bought one way tickets for the whole family, from Pisa to Paris for just over 100 euros one-way. We had a great time in Paris and everything was working out well, we thought.
I've been researching our options for health (medical) insurance while we're in Florence. Our "American" policy covers us for the first 180 days after our move, so we have to change over pretty soon. There are basically two roads we can take...
I just started the process of registering our family as official residents of the City of Florence. With “resident” status, we’ll be eligible to sign up for Italy’s national healthcare, we can own a car and get car insurance, and I think we also get great discounts at all the museums and monuments in Florence.
For anyone planning on applying for residency, it’s fairly simple: I went to the comune’s “Anagrafe” office at Via Dei Leoni #5 at the back of the Palazzo Vecchio – their webpage has a lot of good info if you can get through the Italian.
First, I stopped at the front desk in the waiting room where they gave me the form to fill out and a number to wait my turn. I was able to put the entire family on one application form, since we’re all living at the same address. Once my turn came, I needed to show a passport and a Permesso di Soggiorno (Permit to Stay) for each family member. Then, I don't really understand why, but she asked for a Marriage Certificate – and of course I didn’t have one. I showed her the kids’ birth certificates stating that Anthony and I are their parents, and she finally accepted this as proof of our marriage. (I think she was trying to tell me that the birth certificates were not acceptable proof, but every rule in Italy seems to be at least a little flexible, thank god! It probably also helped that I don’t speak Italian well and had a hard time understanding her --- so she just gave up.)
Now that the paperwork is done, we’re waiting for an official to stop by our apartment to confirm that we physically live here. Once he meets us and reports back to the office, they mail out our Residency Cards. Once we get our cards, we can sign up for the National Healthcare…look for my post in the near future.
Ellen