Moving to Venice
 

Hi,
Can you give me any advice on what needs to be done in order to move to Venice from the US? Can you recommend an agency for long term apartment rentals, not high priced tourist rentals? Any other suggestions for a smooth move? I am a retired lady who will not be working. Are there any Italian language classes? Thank you.

Before you start looking into apartments - you need to get your schengen visa sorted out. It isn't an automatic thing.

Move...as in forever? Or short term?

I don't think it is as easy as that.

I'll await others' answers also.

Recent thread:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...g-to-italy.cfm

And my comments there:

Good thread about one Fodorite moving to Venice (from the UK):

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...inevenezia.cfm

and her husband's blog:

http://jonesesavenezia.blogspot.it/

The visa issue is obviously a significant one.

However, before going too far with your planning I would make a fairly extended visit to Venice - a couple of weeks at least - to male sure that this is really something you will want to do long-term. (You don;t mention that you have ever been there.)

Living is very different from the US and also from most of Italy - due to the fairly small local population, the huge number of tourists and the conditions imposed by canals versus streets.

You should definitely get your visa before looking for apartment rentals.

You need to work out your legal issues first. You can't just up and permanently move to Italy without paperwork in order. Renting apartments and taking language classes can come later.

What's the longest you've spent in Venice? If you have not spent significant time there, I would suggest doing a 3-month stay (which you can do as a tourist) to make sure this is what you want to do.

I think that many people who visit Venice fall in love with the place – my wife and I certainly have. Each time we have been to Venice (three times, each for a couple of months) we’ve thought that we’d love to live there. And then, fortunately, reality sets in. A great place to visit for two or three months, but not somewhere where we would choose to live.

Do read the blogs that Indy-dad above has referenced. Phil’s blog is realistic, despite the fact that he bangs on about Wagner and Verdi. The same goes for Caroline’s thread on Fodors, it is also realistic. We’ve met both Phil and Caroline, shared drinks and meals and see them as good friends. Sure, they like it in Venice, and they are both working, teaching English. (I guess anything would be better than working in the IT department of a bank in Scotland). Phil and Caroline did intensive Italian classes for the first couple of months when they arrived in Venice.

I’ve just read a book called “The Politics of Washing: Real Life in Venice” by Polly Cole. From the description:
“This is the story of ordinary life in an extraordinary place. The beautiful city of Venice has been a fantasy land for people from around the globe for centuries, but what is it like to live there? To move house by boat, to get a child with a broken leg to hospital or set off for school one morning only to find that the streets have become rivers and the playground is a lake full of sewage?”
The book is pretty accurate, and probably destroys a few myths about Venice and Italians. Venice is not always a city bathed in a Turner-esque light, the Piazza looking like a Caneletto painting.

So, before you commit to the big move, throw away the guide books. Visit Venice for two or three months in a single visit. Figure out what you would do to occupy your time there – there is a limit to how much tourist-type things you can do. Think about how you would create a circle of friends – and that’s not easy. Spend a lot of time walking around, with an eye to how it would be to live in a particular area. While Venice is small – you could walk from one end to the other in less than two hours – there are big differences in the look and feel of the various sestiere, and even from campo to campo. Santa Marta is not like San Pietro, Celestia is unlike San Basilio. Maybe Giudecca would work for you. San Barnaba does it for us, not so much San Giacomo, Cannaregio not at all. But that’s us, and you need to have some knowledge of your chosen neighborhood when you start looking for a place to rent.

Visa - an Elective Residence Visa (Type D) – but this is just information from a Google search. I don’t know much about this.

As for the red tape, if you only have US passport, you need to get Type D long-stay, non-working visa from the Italian consulate that covers your State. It isn't automatically given, and you need to show, among other things, reasons for going, sufficient funds/regular income not to need to work (which you won't be allowed to), health insurance (you won't be covered by local scheme), possibly medical certificate (e.g. free from communicative diseases and mental illness) and police clearance. You also need to show you have a suitable place to live, but at the application stage, it only needs to be provisional, not paid for. Your local Italian consulate can give you more details.

Apart from the visa issues, which are your priority and will take quite some time, you ask about Italian lessons. If you don't speak the language, you're in for a rough time just managing the details of everyday life. While you're working out the visa details, I'd encourage you to do some serious language immersion.

St Cirq is right. Imagine the situation that you would be in if you relocated to a small city in the USA, and your only language was Italian, with maybe a little broken English. It would be tough.

Sure, you could do the day to day things, buy food, that sort of low level stuff, maybe visit a doctor. But you’d find it hard to connect with the local people. It could be a very lonely existence.

Not only connecting with the local people (and you're sure right about that), but what to do when the apartment floods, when you need a vice or a chain saw (OK, probably not in Venice) or a stonemason to deal with repairs to your wet walls? When I bought by house in France 20 years ago, I already pretty much had mastery of French, and yet there were a million things I didn't know how to discuss. I remember walking the aisles of the Bricomarché thinking "how do I ask for a pool wand?" Just last September I had a mason come to look at a crack in one of the walls of my house and he said "Madame, vous avez besoin de deux tirants." OK, I could get a general idea, being familiar with the verb tirer, but I didn't even know the word tie-rod in ENGLISH! I have a notebook I keep in St-Cirq with all the terms and words I've learned since being there - 50 pages at this point, and I started off with very good French speaking and reading and writing comprehension.

But yes, lonely and isolated if you can't make friends and speak the language. And to learn a language well enough to even do normal things like go to the market, get a telephone installed and understand how to use it, go to the bank and set up an account, pay bills....all really basic skills that require reading and speaking comprehension...takes a LOT of time, as in years.

Unless of course you have boatloads of money and live in an expat community and have expensive English-language helpers, which is hardly the point, to my mind.

Once again you people blow me away with your well thought out and sensible answers, just as I knew you would. Please add anything else you think I should be aware of. It will be a long term move. Yes, I have spent over a month there in winter and will be there again this year from November till January. I will be retiring in November so I will have a pension and health benefits.

May I ask why you chose Venice?

I absolutely love Venice but am always curious when someone decides to move to city XYZ in a certain country. Just curious. Not trying to be nosy. Well maybe just a little! Thanks.

Not sure where you are from - but if it's the US you should be aware that Medicare is not valid outside the US - so you would need private healthcare.

>>St Cirq is right. Imagine the situation that you would be in if you relocated to a small city in the USA, and your only language was Italian, with maybe a little broken English. It would be tough.<<

Not exactly. While I advocate learning the native language, one can hardly compare the language skills in a small US city with those of the people in Venice. I speak Italian, and I would have to say the only time I've used it in Venice is either when I insist on it or sometimes when communicating with an older person.

I'm the Caroline kindly referred to above (now of Venice, formerly of Edinburgh). Yes, do look at Erynn's thread as she is in the same position as you, wanting to move here and retired.

As Peter says (hello again Peter!), we did an intensive Italian course (3 months) after moving here, at the Istituto Venezia which I can recommend. But we had also already been doing evening classes for years before we moved here 21 years on & off, in my case!). And still struggled with our Italian not being quite good enough to cope easily with the bueaucracy. So if you aren't already, start working on it as hard as you can now. Even after all that + 18 months living here, my spoken Italian is still pretty bad as I don't get enough practice.

As regards bureaucracy, Erynn has the advantage of her brother who's lived in Italy for years and can accompany her. If your Italian isn't already very good, think about how you'd deal with this.

Peter makes a very good point about thinking about how you'd make friends. I haven't found it easy, although DH has fared better since he has joined choirs (so also gets to practise his Italian there 2 or 3 times a week.) There are quite a number of American and British residents here, though, and a few societies run by them, which may appeal. Are you an outgoing type and do you make new friends easily?

As regards accommodation, we only looked for a long-term rental after we moved here, having initially booked in advance a holiday flat (where we'd stayed before) for our first 2 weeks and subsequently another for 10 days. It wasn't that difficult to find a flat, although we found that calling into estate agencies didn't really help (after I'd laboriously made a list from the property papers). All our useful leads came via the internet, mainly using websites like casa.it & casaweb.it. Via the websites I contacted various agencies who'd advertised flats I liked the look of, generally found those flats were no longer available but some then emailed to offer us others.

Having said that, from something I read I believe that non-EU citizens applying for a long-term visa may need a rental contract in advance, but I wouldn't really know about that. Erynn is going to stay with her brother initially so I'm not sure if she'll know either.

Anyway, we would be happy to meet up when you are here in November, if you want to pick our brains then.

P.S. Vincenzo, with respect, you don't actually live here, do you? I have certainly needed Italian at the Comune, at the tax office, at the bank, at the various hospitals/clinics, etc - all those 'everyday life' situations.

If you are an alcoholic, it doesn't matter where you live.

Spritz!


Thin

Hello, did you move to Venezia? Tell me how was your experience and what kind of visa was the best for you.

Sincerely,
Clauda