Me and my husband and 13 year old son are looking at living in either the French or Italian country side for six months of the year. Any one know which country would be the best and easiest. Also what time of the year would be best.

Hi G,

Flip a coin. Then get a map of the winning country and throw a dart at it.

"We" (those who advise here regularly, and even those who advise infrequently) need at least some inkling of clues as to why France and Italy made your list of candidate countries... versus England or Spain or Switzerland or Poland. Do you have any background in, or affinity for... the language or culture or arts or cuisine of one country or the other, or both? And you refer to "living" in the country side - - but does that mean solely as vacationers/tourists? or do you want to seek some gainful or purposeful volunteer work or employment? do you want to garden? engage in farming at your own location or that of a neighbor? enjoy watersports? winter sports? hike or camp?

More info will yield better advice.

Best wishes,

Rex

Well - when you're vacationing which counry do you like better? And why?

(You canl;t seriously be thinking of moving for 6 months per year to any country you've never spent some time in.)

Also - language facility is an issue. You can do fine in either as a tourist with nothing but english. but to live for 6 months and deal with all sorts of local merchants and tradesmen you will need at least a basic working knowledge of the language.

And what about schooling for your child? Will he/she attend two different schools every year? Or one boarding school and visit you only ocassionally?

It appears you haven;t thought this out at all - that is assuming you aren;t a TROLL!

Let's assume that GABBY is a bona fide "newbie" - - how disheatening and bewildering to have someone suggest that this is a troll post (and odds are, a true newbie won't have a clue what a "troll" is).

There's a lot here to learn about using this forum, gabby... and you hven't done anything wrong, unless given a paucity of information "counts" as a "mistake" (and it is one of the commonest characteristics of a new registrant). One valuable tip you may not have encountered her yet is "click on your own name" - - the simple way to find any/all of your previous posts (it's how I know you posted for the first time ever, here today).

As for schooling, I think one might fairly assume that gabby and husband are either home schooling their 13 year old or sympathetic to the idea of doing it for a year. I think it could be done successfully in either country - - though it 's yet one more reason that language comfort level would be very important. Interacting with pupils at a local school would be an important part of the experience, in my opinion - - and getting ideas from their teacher(s) as well. In my experience, most teachers in France (at least all those under 40) have a fairly decent command of English, but interacting with them will be much more rewarding if you can meet them part way, in French.

Northern Italy is for culture, complicated food, sour wine, and cutting edge technology. Southern Italy is for good comfort food, lazy beaches, ruins walks, sweet wine, and slower pace of life. (Except for Naples of course...which follows rules of its own!) French feel that Americans are over fed, over indulged, and over-religious...Italians are more happy to see you, and cannot imagine being over religious. French food is very complicated, and very good, the climate in Winter is more continental, (less moderate)and the wine is bitter. Summer in France, winter in Calabria, work in Tuscany.

I'm sorry to respond so negatively... but what useless generalizations!

The wines of the Piemonte &quot;sour&quot;? &quot;Bitter&quot; wines from (<i>all</i> of) France?

And to boot, we have no idea (yet) whether gabby and husband have any interest in wines at all!

This posting nay not have started out &quot;trollsome&quot;, but this new addition from the (first-time-registered-today) <i>alleged</i> Canadian seems to want to take it that direction!

Hi GABBY, what country are you a resident and citizen of? I ask because if you are in the US I believe you will find that you are legally only allowed to stay in France and/or Italy for a maximum of 90 days unless you have special permission. But perhaps you live in a country that will allow you a longer time in either of these countries.

Now, about the comment that Northern Italy has sour wine....WHAAAAT??? LOL!!

I'm not sure about sour wine, but there sure are a lot of &quot;sour grapes&quot; here.

Well some lovely politically correct replies, I'll try and be more controversal. I speak Both French and Spanish and my wife and I mange quite well in Italian, so lets say language is a neutral issue for us. We have extensively visited France Spain and recently visited Italy. I loved all three and my heart will always be in Spain, since I work there for 3 years.

But I would lean towards Italy for tourist style vacation as ther is so much to do, Spain for relaxation IMHO they have the best mediteranean beaches, and for some romance definetely France.

If you ask my son he rates all trips as follows RIO,Italy,Spain,France,he's been travelling since he was 5 and is now 12, at 12 are answers are rarely political.

To confuse the issue evenmore, If I had to live somewhere it would be a toss up of Valencia-Alicante or Tuscany.

Anyway just one opinion among a zillion

My wife and I decided that we would move to Europe for a sabatical from &quot;W&quot; for a two to three year period.
In February, we took a one month trip to the south of France and northern Italy, to look at possibilities and to see what it felt like to be here in non tourist season. Our conclusions were shocking to us, as for the past 6 years we had made annual treks to Italy and were quite certain that we would love to live there. Italy was as marvelous as we had expected, unforunately the language skills that we had previously thought to be adequate turned out to be woefully inadequate without the help of tourist season english speakers around us. We moved on to France where we found our limited knowledge of French to be understandable and therefore comforting. There IS a MAJOR difference in always having to communicate in a foreign language, therefore pick the country that YOU will be most comfortable with your level of communication. The French and the Italians are wonderful people, but unless you they are required to speak English to you, they will natuarally want you to speak to them in there language. The last time I started my converstaion in France with &quot;parlez vous Anglais&quot; was in the post office in Sarlat. The response was a pleasant - &quot;non, pour q'oui, je suis en France&quot;. I took that to the bank and never asked that silly question again.

For me, it would have to be Italy. My heart already lives there. My brain is just working on the logistics.

Just tonight my husband and I were talking about our feelings toward Italy and France, both of which we love to visit. He had an interesting comment: &quot;I feel more comfortable in France, but I have more fun in Italy.&quot;

Poor Gabby. I think she was only looking for individual opinions. You guys sure are on the warpath!! Also nytraveler, several years ago I spent 11 months living, working and travelling in a country I'd never before been to. It's not that big a deal. She's only going to France or Italy, not Saturn!!