Rural Italy is beautiful and the food (in the grocery stores and markets) is both great and ridiculously cheap. But there are a few downsides. 100-plus-year-old

Rural Italy is beautiful and the food (in the grocery stores and markets) is both great and ridiculously cheap. But there are a few downsides. 100-plus-year-old houses often require significant refurbishment including earthquake mitigation (depending on the area) and they can be expensive to heat unless you spend $$$ on new windows and good seals and insulation. But the biggest problem for a foreigner moving to Italy might be the bureaucracy: Huge stacks of paper forms to be filled out and handed in to a guy who just happens not to be in his office today. Repeatedly. If you have a lot of patience for this sort of thing, Italy is lovely.