Natalia Romashko shared her cautionary tale about moving to the European Union hotspot, citing the Italian focus on food and love of bureaucracy as things for newbies to watch out for
Brits have been given some etiquette tips to brush up on before visiting Italy from an expat who has moved there.
Natalia Romashko shared her cautionary tale about moving to the European Union hotspot, citing the Italian focus on food and love of bureaucracy as things for newbies to watch out for. Natalia explained how life in Italy can present unique challenges to newcomers in the European Union holiday destination.
She warned that life in Italy is not always what its cracked up to be, Birmingham Live reports. “Italian bureaucracy will make you cry and beg for mercy, believe me,” she warned. “Consider that when I moved to Italy, I could already speak Italian quite well, and still it was quite hard for me to figure out how to do the documents, the residence permit and so on.
“Mostly all these problems with bureaucracy are a consequence of the fact that Italy is not very digitally advanced.” Natalia also warned over the trend of “food fascism”, describing the judgement inflicted on those who eat differently from locals. “Italians are very attentive about food,” she explained. “The problem is that Italians always care about what you eat. They always comment and they always judge you based on what you have in your plate in your cup.
“For example, in Italy, you can’t drink coffee with milk after 11am. You can’t drink a coffee with milk with your sandwich.” She claims the tax system is a major deterrent for many foreigners because high reductions fail to “motivate people to work”. Istat estimated that 5,171,894 foreign citizens lived in Italy in 2021 making up about 8.7% of the total population. Brits living in the Mediterranean country numbered 66,912 people in 2020, mainly present in Rome, Milan and Tuscany. Most British people settled in the country to work. To live in Italy for more than 90 days, you need to apply for a National Visa, also known as a D-Visa. If you want to invest in Italy financially, you may be eligible for the Italian Golden Visa Scheme.
