Our First Year Living in Italy: The Honest Review

We just passed the one-year mark of our first year living in Italy. We celebrated it the way this country has taught us to mark things: a long table outside, too much food, kids feral by dessert. The year itself was less picturesque. Since leaving Denver we have unpacked our lives more than four times: Denver to Florida, Florida to the apartment at Casa del Rose that we had renovated the year before so we would have somewhere to land, the finished apartment to the stone farmhouse we thought was the ending, and, three weeks later, the farmhouse to the apartment where I am writing this. If you are considering the move, or you are somewhere in the middle of your own year one and quietly wondering if you are failing at it, this is our honest review: what broke, what held, and what actually got us through.

Before the year, the reason. We came to Italy after we lost one of our twin daughters at 26 weeks, and after I sat with my father through his last breath. Underneath the grief, our life ran on a loop we had not chosen, so we sold the businesses, and the sale bought us the freedom to move. Everything below happened inside that decision, which is why none of it made us want to go back.

What broke

The plan. We lived at Casa del Rose for about six months before we found the farmhouse we had built the whole dream around, put down a deposit, and waited nearly six months for the closing. In May the sellers gave us a rent-back so we could move in early and put solar panels in over the summer. Three weeks after the boxes came in, we had to walk away from it. And there was no going back to the apartment, because our long-term renters were already living in it, exactly as planned. So the year's final act was finding a new home on short notice and explaining to two little girls why the boxes were moving again.

My competence. In Denver I ran businesses. Here, for a while, I could not confidently mail a package. The gap between who I was and who I could express in Italian was the loneliest part of the year, and no photograph of a hill town shows it.

Our speed. We arrived operating at American pace, two founders used to solving everything by end of day. Italy does not negotiate with that. Offices close midday, August closes entirely, and the word for tomorrow does a lot of quiet work. The country simply outlasted our urgency, and eventually we handed it over.

What held

Us, eventually. A move like this puts a marriage inside a pressure cooker with all the labels in another language. Somewhere around the house loss we stopped keeping score of whose idea this was and became one team with one problem list. That was the most important shift of the whole year.

The girls. Children are terrifyingly portable. Within months our older daughter had a classroom, friends, and a better accent than ours. Her best friend came with a bonus: her parents have become our twin couple, married friends whose life runs parallel to ours, right down to babies born nine months apart. Our younger one cannot really talk yet. She has exactly one confident Italian word, and it is caca. Poop. We could not be prouder.

The town. Our neighbors brought us homemade tiramisu, the best either of us has ever eaten. The lady at the flower market sent me home with a bag of produce from her own garden. When we moved away for those three farmhouse weeks, we came back to a town that was visibly excited to see us, and now we cannot walk down the street without seeing someone we know. When the plan broke, we were caught by people we had known for less than a year.

The five ordinary things that got us through

1. The morning bar. Same bar, same order, nearly every day. It was the first place we were recognized, and on the worst weeks it was proof the day had structure.
2. The school run. It forced routine, language, and small talk we were not ready for. Every real friendship we have here traces back to a gate or a market stall.
3. Market Fridays. A fresh block of parmigiano and a roast chicken, nearly every Friday. The market gave the week a shape, and learning the vendors' names felt like learning the town's password.
4. Thursday flowers. Walking to get flowers for the house every Thursday became the smallest, most reliable luxury of the week, a bit of beauty we chose on purpose in a year that chose so much for us.
5. Writing it down. These field notes started as a way to stop the year from blurring past. I have always been the documenting kind, an avid journaler, a Tumblr blogger back in the day, a creative spirit with a full camera roll. Writing this year down as it happened has been genuinely cathartic. The honest middle, written while it was still uncertain, became the most valuable thing we own from year one: living proof of the courage to live differently despite making mistakes along the way.

What a year actually changes

Your definition of a good day recalibrates. A year ago I measured days by output. Now the days that feel wealthy are the slow ones, and I wrote about that shift in what feels like luxury now. The bureaucracy still exists, the language still humbles us weekly, and none of it surprises us anymore, which turns out to be most of what settling in means. We know which towns, tables, and Sunday drives hold the whole thing together.

Frequently asked questions

Is the first year living in Italy hard?

Yes, in ways the photos hide, and worth it in ways the photos also hide. The hard parts for us were bureaucracy, language, identity, and moving house more times in one year than we had in the previous decade. The good parts were pace, food, safety, and a town that caught us when the plan broke.

What surprised you most in your first year?

How much of belonging came through repetition rather than charm. We kept showing up, at the bar, at the gate, at the market, until we were familiar. That was the entire trick.

Did your kids adjust to life in Italy?

Faster than we did. School was the engine: language, friends, and a routine that made the new place theirs. The move was hardest on them in the first weeks, and hardest on us for months longer.

Do you regret moving to Italy?

No, and I say that as someone whose first year included losing a house. I regret specific decisions inside the year, like how fast we committed to a property. The decision itself keeps proving right on ordinary Tuesdays.

What would you tell someone starting their first year abroad?

Expect the dip around month three and do not grade the whole life by it. Pick your town more carefully than your house. And build small rituals fast: a market day, a flower day, a bar where they know your order. Repetition is how a new place becomes yours.

Keep reading the field notes

If you are in your own year one, the wobbly middle counts as progress even when it does not feel like it. I write the honest version of building a life in Italy: home, motherhood, identity, and the slow rebuild. Read more field notes here, or start with what it actually takes to sell everything and start over.