The Anthony in Italy Podcast

Andrea grew up in Perugia, Italy. He left for Madrid at 18, then New York in his 20s. Not for a job, not for money. He left because he couldn't be himself in Umbria. We talk about what it's actually like to build a life in New York as an Italian. The visa nightmare (makes Italian bureaucracy look easy). Gentrification and what NYC lost post-COVID. Why Italian Americans and Italians from It...

Margherita Berti has a linguistics degree, runs an online Italian language school with thousands of students, and has been teaching Italian for over five years. In this episode, we get into what it actually takes to learn Italian — not the theory, but the real stuff. We talk about the B1 certificate (what it is, who needs it, and whether it matters for citizenship), how long it realistically takes...

In questo episodio parlo con Kyrios, un sassofonista della provincia di Napoli che oggi vive e lavora a Perugia. Parliamo della sua storia con la musica, di come ha iniziato a suonare il sax da bambino e del percorso che lo ha portato a studiare al conservatorio e a lavorare come musicista professionista tra matrimoni, eventi e DJ set. Durante la conversazione tocchiamo molti temi diversi. La scen...

Note: there were some audio issues during this recording - for best experience, watch it in YouTube with subtitles. In this episode, I sit down with Harry to talk about life between cultures — growing up British, spending time in Greece, and living in Italy. We get into some of the small cultural differences that people don’t always notice until they live here: coffee culture, breakfast habits, dr...

In this episode, I sit down with food historian Zach Nowak (PhD) to dig into the real history behind iconic Italian dishes — and why so much of what we think we know is wrong. This is a conversation about culture, migration, nationalism, and the stories we tell ourselves about food. We get into the salt wars in Umbria and why Umbrians still eat unsalted bread, the cultural symbolism of torta al te...

Nate and I sat down for one of those meandering, no-rush conversations about what it’s actually like to live in Italy—not the Instagram version, but the messy, funny, frustrating, sometimes absurd day-to-day stuff. We talked about learning Italian (and butchering it along the way), the oddities of dining out, what it means to be a musician here, and how different the cultural wiring is compared to...

Talking taxes in Italy is no picnic — especially if you're a foreigner trying to navigate the system. I sat down with Giovanni Cervini to dig into some of the stuff that trips people up the most: tax residency rules, what happens if you own property, double taxation headaches, remote work implications, and how all of it changes if you’re new to Italy. Giovanni laid out how the Italian system l...

In this episode, Erica gets real about what it’s like to pack up your life, move your family across the ocean, and start over in Italy. We dig into why they did it, the hoops they had to jump through for citizenship, and what it’s actually like navigating daily life, schools, and cultural differences with kids in a brand new country. Erica doesn’t sugarcoat the challenges, but also shares how rewa...

In this episode, I sit down with my friend Andreas to talk about what it’s actually like building a life—and a business—in Italy. We get into everything from cultural identity and language learning to the weird realities of Italian bureaucracy and what it takes to thrive here as a foreigner. We also dive into the cocktail scene, community-building, and how Italy’s approach to food, service, and ev...

In this episode, I talk with my friend and business partner, attorney Christina Prejean, about what it really takes to get Italian citizenship. Christina shares how her background—including time in the military and a serious travel bug—led her to dive into dual citizenship. We get into the nuts and bolts of the process, why an Italian passport is worth chasing, and how getting help from someone wh...

In this episode, I talk with Giulia Speziali—an Italian language teacher from Perugia—about everything from her time teaching in China to what makes Italian such a weirdly emotional language to learn and teach. We get into how people actually learn languages (hint: it’s not from grammar books), how TikTok is changing education, and why pronunciation trips people up more than anything. We also unpa...

In this episode, I talk with Sonya about what it’s really like to move from Russia to Italy. We cover everything from language struggles to cultural curveballs—plus what surprised her most about Italians. We also dig into what it feels like to be an expat, the weird differences between life in the US and Italy, and how travel restrictions have shaped our lives in unexpected ways. Sonya shares some...

In this episode, I sit down with my friend Cosimo Serpolla to talk honestly about life in Italy—what works, what doesn’t, and what people don’t tell you before moving here. We dig into cultural expectations, job market frustrations, how the experience differs if you’re LGBTQ+ or an expat, and why cities like Brussels keep pulling people away. If you’ve ever dreamed of living in Italy, this one’s f...