I fell in love with Italy when I was twelve, during a short holiday in Florence.

Florence does not really hold any obvious attractions for a child of that age, but I was hooked: the winding majesty of the Arno, the intriguing Ponte Vecchio with its ornate jewellery shops and mysterious corridors - incorporated to whisk the ruling Medici family from the Uffizi to the Palazzo Pitti, - the ground-breaking structure of Brunelleschi’s Duomo.

I loved the sights, smells, landscape, cuisine and sounds, especially those of the Italian language itself; and although I didn’t step foot in the country again until I was twenty-eight, I never forgot the initial feelings Italy had inspired in me. But despite the fact that I left England at eighteen, Spain was my destination, not Italy. And when, eight years later, I moved again, it was to France.
 
So Italy remained an elusive dream until 2010, when I was thirty-two, and finally in a position to think about moving to the country that had so ensnared me twenty years previously. The first thing to decide was where in Italy.

Like a lot of people, Tuscany is the region that first comes to mind when I think about life here – rolling countryside dotted with poppies; punctuated by historic hilltop villages. But Tuscany comes with its own problems, namely that its popularity has pushed prices through the roof and that much of Tuscany, and indeed Umbria, is heavily populated by British and other foreign nationals – something I wanted to avoid in order to immerse myself in the acquisition of the Italian language (my personal motive for travel).

I turned my thoughts to less well-known regions: Abruzzo and Le Marche, both on the Adriatic coast and as yet relatively untouched by the property gold rush; but I still had an apartment to sell in southern France, so moving so far from the border was not a practical option under the circumstances.

I was already acquainted with the Mediterranean region of Liguria, having frequently travelled across during my time in the Alpes Maritimes region of southern France. I had visited the sights of Genova, its capital, Imperia, Sanremo and some of the villages situated further back from the coast. It wasn’t really what I had had in mind when imagining my life in Italy, but as a temporary solution it would do just fine.

So I began my search for employment. A good source of English-speaking jobs in almost every country with large populations of English-speaking immigrants, is a website called Anglo Info: offering articles on different aspects of foreign living, and forums which unite people and help answer their questions.

There I found an administrative job in an organisation that specialised in offering English immersion courses to Italian children during the summer months, and English theatre and workshops the rest of the year. The salary was pretty appalling – barely €900 a month after tax and a third of what I had been earning in Monaco – but salaries in Italy are notoriously low.

I approached estate agencies to source a rental property, but came up against some problems. Namely that in Italy a “Quattro per Quattro” contract is required by many landlords, tying the renter into a four-year contract, with the obligation of a six-month notice period. Other problems were my dog, and the fact that I was a foreigner who had only just begun to work in the country –not reliable enough guarantees for an Italian property owner, and required six months to a year of rent up front in order to secure a contract: impossible.

In France I had been shocked by the (pretty sensible) law requiring people to prove monthly earnings that are at least three times their rent, but this was much more serious. To top it off, I really had no desire to live in town – both me and my dog are country bumpkins at heart. So I went exploring in a village about twenty kilometres from my place of work.

There I stopped for coffee. I asked the barman if he knew anywhere to rent. His mother had a suitable apartment. She asked for a handshake in lieu of a deposit, and offered a contract with no stipulations for either the length of my stay or required notice period. I moved in just a few weeks later, and thus began my new life in Italy.