My boyfriend and I are in our 50's. We want to try living in Italy for two or three months. We don't want to live in Rome or Florence. We want a smaller city with restaurants and shops. I would like to study Italian. My boyfriend would like to take cooking classes. We heard that Trieste would be a good place to live . We also heard that there are some good size cities by Bologna. We would like some advice please

>>> I would like to study Italian ... We heard that Trieste would be a good place to live .
In case you are not aware of, there are considerable accent variations in Italy. I have taken classes in Italy and from many instructors from various parts of Italy. Some have very strong regional accents. If this does not matter, you can go anywhere. But in case you can something more middle of the line, you might want to be more selective. Triese is one of the place I noticed a strong accents. Any places in the South, Napoli and south, have Southern accents of various kinds.

The time of year would affect my choice of location. I can't handle high temps with high humidity.

I'd probably pick a city with a university and good transportation links. Maybe Perugia, Bergamo or Padova in mild weather months. Or Urbino with a car.

Yes, accents vary by region. So does the food.

How about Bologna?

Bologna was my spontaneous first thought even before reading to the end of the post where you mention the cities you are considering. It is a lively university city with a fabulous old town, and known as Bologna la grassa, the Fat - the capital of cuisine in Italy. I did not find the local dialect too challenging (they pronounce dolci "dol-tsi" instead of "dol-tshi", that's the most striking feature I noticed). Due to the university there are people from all over the country and beyond anyway so "high Italian" is widely in use. It is a major transport hub, hence easy to get around.

If I were doing it, I'd choose Vicenza. Smaller city. Cultural attractions. Restaurants and shops. Good transportation access to other cities for day trips, etc.

There are other smaller cities, but it depends on what part of Italy you prefer and whether you want coastal, mountains, or other.

I wouldn't worry about local dialects too much. If you "study" Italian in a formal setting, you'll get the generic pronunciations, and you'll adjust.

Look at it this way. In the US, people from NC and MA using different dialects and pronunciations. They somehow manage to communicate.

Lucca is your best bet.
Check out the Paolo Monti cooking class, and the town is the real thing. Hard to beat.

I would choose Ravenna.

Small enough to have the traditional feel of a town with a center and community, big enough to have the amenities you seek, and - of course - the glorious mosaics!

Near beaches, national parks, and the mountains!

By train or road about an hour from Bologna or San Marino or Rimini, about two hours from Florence or Parma, three hours from Venice.

I am fluent in Italian and I don't remember hearing a particularly distinct dialect.

The University of Perugia has a department called the University for Foreigners (Università per Stranieri) which specializes in Italian instruction. They have 3-month courses year round, and intensive 1-month courses in the summer.

https://www.unistrapg.it/en/studying...ulture-courses

Perugia is a nice small city, with good public transportation by bus and train to other parts of Italy, including Florence and Rome.

People with a higher education generally speak standard Italian, with some regional variation of pronunciation. They may, however, switch to dialect when talking with family members or people they've grown up with. Older people with little education, especially in rural areas, often can't speak anything but the local dialect. Even people with little education will do their best to speak standard Italian to people who don't share their dialect.

The country people where I live have a very marked dialect. When speaking to me, they make a big effort to contain it, but then they'll turn to my husband, who was born and raised in our town, and turn it loose full force on him.

Standard Italian is based, accent-wise, more or less on the pronunciation of Florence. Perugia is not far from there, and you'll learn a fairly standard pronunciation anywhere in central Italy.

There is a regional Romagnola dialect, a variant of which is spoken by people in Ravenna, but, again, people with more than a little education will know standard Italian as well. The Romagnolo accent tends to have more open vowels than standard Italian. Their z is softer, almost an s. It's similar to the accent in Bologna. However, it's not a very nonstandard accent.

Dialects are not just a matter of pronunciation, but of vocabulary and grammar as well. They are very local; the people in the next town, which we can see from the hill our town is on, have a rather different dialect from ours. There are some words, relating to household items, farmyard tools, local wildlife and plants, which even a well-educated person may not know the standard Italian word for, because they're words that you don't encounter in literature or newspapers.

Both Bologna and Perugia would be good choices.

Vicenza is indeed great. There has been a lot of wealth there and culture is omnipresent. Couldn't stay long but plan to go back. Had time to see Romeo and Juliet's castles facing each other though.

Siena.

Alternatively, as already mentioned, Perugia or Lucca.

Both Bologna and Perugia are cities, not quite what you said you wanted. Or did I misunderstand -- since you mentioned Bologna.

Mdunke said they wanted a "smaller city". Lucca (population 90,000), Perugia (population 165,000), Vicenza (113.000) and some of the others mentioned, fit the description, in my opinion. I don't know where to draw the line, but I wouldn't call Bologna (population 375.000) a smaller city.

Nice small cities (I don't know about language courses) would include Ferrara, Mandova, Padua, Parma. Bologna should be good for education but it is getting a bit too big.

Thank you so very much for all of your responses. My boyfriend and I definitely appreciate your assistance. We wanted to stay north of Rome and you gave us some great options. We will look into them and I am so excited to go I'm ready to pack my bags tonight. Thank you .. graci