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Why do you call your grandmother ‘Nonni’?

A great question, with a bit of a silly answer.

Anyone who knows any Italian will probably be able to figure out that nonni actually means ‘grandparents’. Nonno is grandfather and nonna is grandmother - hence nonni is the plural.

The intention was that my grandmother would be called Nonna, but I (as the first of her 13 grandchildren) mispronounced it as a small child and my nickname for her stuck. 35 years later and she’s been Nonni to us all ever since.

Are you actually Italian?

Not really. A little bit. My grandfather was born to Italian parents, from the Veneto region, and he spent his childhood years growing up on a farm in a small town near Padova. He was always incredibly proud of his Italian heritage, but thought of himself as an Australian. Despite the fact that he maintained his Italian language skills, none of his children or grandchildren learnt.

I was very close to my grandfather and looked up to him greatly. Certainly the time we spent together and his love of Italy shaped me. Unfortunately he died a couple of years ago. A big part of this journey for me is reclaiming that part of my heritage and being able to pass it down to my children as well.

How are you staying in Italy?

It turns out that due to an obscure quirk in the rules, I am eligible for Italian citizenship by descent via my great-grandparents. This also applies to my two children, and then to my husband via marriage. So we are here on a special visa which is granted to people who return to Italy to have their Italian citizenship recognised.

Italian citizenship by descent is unusual (compared to other countries) in that there is no generational limit set for how far back you can go to make a claim. If you can prove a link, and an unbroken chain between you and that ancestor, then you are eligible. This seems straightforward, but of course it is not.

One day I will write a post on the process of claiming citizenship jure sanguinis. Although it could easily fill a book. Suffice to say that it has taken a lot of persistence (of course!).

At the moment our claim is being processed. Once approved, we are then registered as citizens and we can apply for Italian passports. This will be a momentous day and the culmination of years of work!

Why did you choose Lucca as your new home in Italy?

Once we decided for real that we were going to do this, we immediately started Googling things like “best towns to live in Italy” etc. Of course this was a bit ridiculous, as the best town for one person would be totally wrong for someone else. I also spent a decent few weeks at the start of our planning trying to justify choosing Venice, as this is the place I feel the strongest connection to through my family. But for many reasons it was never going to be the right choice for us.

So then we got a bit more structured in our thinking and started to come up with some criteria…

• Good weather, not too cold in winter and not too scorching in summer.

• Near the coast. Which is pretty easy in Italy!

• Not a big city, but big enough that it had the services we needed. These included nursery schools, accessible healthcare, language schools, and good transport connections as we didn’t intend to buy a car.

• A population that was likely to include some other non-Italians, as a support network when we first arrived and still couldn’t really communicate in the local language confidently.

• A town that was not on any tourist top 5 or 10 lists, which ruled out places like Florence, Siena, etc.

This helped us narrow the search a lot. We ended up pretty quickly in Tuscany and nearby regions, and once we put Lucca on the list of options it felt inevitably like the right choice. Happily, it has been everything we hoped for and more!

How is raising young children in Italy?

Fantastic. We have a three year old girl and a one year old boy, and they have been our keys to the castle in every sense. We often refer to them as the princelings of Lucca.

Everyone always told me that Italians love children. But I didn’t really know what that meant until we landed here with two little humans in tow. People who would otherwise not lift a finger to help, will move heaven and earth to assist when you have a cute little person with you.

The most interesting thing is that it doesn’t even seem to matter whether or not they are behaving at the time. Children can do no wrong in the eyes of the Italians!

Language comes very easily to children and ours aren’t bothered by playing with friends who aren’t speaking the same language as them.

We send them to a bilingual English-Italian school just outside the walls of Lucca, and this has been a fabulous way to immerse them that still provides support if they ever need it. Most of their classmates and teachers speak Italian, but there’s always an English-speaking teacher available. They are both very happy!