Suddenly it hit me like smack in the face. During the more than forty years of visiting Italy on holidays or business trips, my...

Suddenly it hit me like smack in the face. During the more than forty years of visiting Italy on holidays or business trips, my fascination with the country had focused on physical things: the monuments and museums, the public squares, the food, the street markets, the beaches with the requisite rows of umbrellas, the verdant landscape. All are tangible, represented abundantly with stunning photographs in articles, countless books, travel magazines, and posts on Instagram.  However, as the years of living here have passed, the role of these places in my mind has been replaced with subjects such as navigating the ever-changing and almost always confusing number of bureaucracies – both public and private – that can...

Suddenly it hit me like smack in the face. During the more than forty years of visiting Italy on holidays or business trips, my fascination with the country had focused on physical things: the monuments and museums, the public squares, the food, the street markets, the beaches with the requisite rows of umbrellas, the verdant landscape. All are tangible, represented abundantly with stunning photographs in articles, countless books, travel magazines, and posts on Instagram.  However, as the years of living here have passed, the role of these places in my mind has been replaced with subjects such as navigating the ever-changing and almost always confusing number of bureaucracies – both public and private – that can...