New York Times
By Frederika Randall
March 12, 2002
 

UCIGNANO, Italy -- DEE AND WARREN SWEET are trying very, very hard 
to think of something they don't like about being retired Americans living in 
Tuscany...

Tourists, volunteers Mr. Sweet. "There is too much tourism in Tuscany," he 
says flatly. Hotels, restaurants and gift shops are not what he moved to 
Italy to enjoy.

What's it like retiring to paradise? How does Tuscany measure up to the 
golden portrait Frances Mayes paints in "Under the Tuscan Sun," her 1996 best 
seller about how she bought and restored a house near Cortona? 

Americans who have settled in the region report that it's somewhat more 
crowded and much more expensive than it used to be. But when the Sweets look 
out their front window, they see a narrow road winding down a valley, past 
dusty green olive trees toward the blue smudge of hills on the horizon. No 
wonder they don't want to live anywhere else...

Nevertheless, a growing number of Americans have retired to in Tuscany as 
well as to nearby Umbria, real estate agents and long-time residents in 
central Italy say. In Cortona, near Ms. Mayes's famously restored house, as 
many as 30 percent of the residents already come from abroad. Although Faith 
Hunt, the regional benefits officer at the United States consulate in Rome, 
could not give figures specifically for Tuscany, she said that the number of 
people receiving Social Security benefits in Italy had been rising in the 
last few years...

"Americans do come with preconceptions about Italy," she says. "There's the 
idea that Italians take three-hour lunches and generally don't do a damn 
thing. The old dolce far niente." 

Actually, the sweet life on the land is hard work. For 10 years, with just 
one helper, Mr. Basile tended his 17-acre vineyard himself. Fatigue and some 
bad harvest years eventually caught up with him, and now he rents the 
vineyard to another farmer. He calls himself a "pentito," a winemaker who 
changed his mind. The Basiles agree they would not want to live anywhere 
else, but they are naturally skeptical about neophyte enthusiasm for the 
rugged hills of Tuscany.

"What's the recipe for enjoying Tuscany as a foreigner?" says Mr. Basile in 
his rapid-fire English. "Keep the dollar strong. Maintain your 
Alice-in-Wonderland attitude. Remain an eternal tourist."

More than a decade after he moved here, Mr. Sweet, an engineer, appreciates 
things about Italy that coffee table books don't hint at. For instance, he 
likes the much-maligned Italian bureaucracy, which he thinks is "far less of 
a problem than in my home state" and the national health plan. A few years 
ago, Mr. Sweet's 89-year-old mother in California had to be moved to a new 
nursing home. The Sweets brought her to Italy and paid for her to stay in a 
home just up the road from them. When she had to be hospitalized, she was in 
a shining new hospital in Arezzo. "There was no paperwork and no cost," Mr. 
Sweet says.

To use the Italian national health plan, Americans must be legal residents 
with a residence permit, which means they are subject to Italian income tax, 
which can be applied as a credit to American taxes. Those who have a 
worldwide health insurance plan can also find private doctors and clinics in 
Italy, although for major medical procedures the public system usually offers 
the most avant-garde care. Emergency care — outpatient and inpatient — is 
available to all, regardless of ability to pay.

Getting old and needing care is one thing that gives many people pause, 
however... "Is it possible to grow old gracefully in this country? I don't 
know," he says. "Italy does not have what the U.S. has in terms of long-term 
care." 

RETIREMENT communities that offer medical and hospitalization services are 
almost nonexistent in Italy; the old and infirm are looked after at home. 
"Being old in Italy doesn't cost as much as it does in America," Mr. Corey 
says. "But there are not many places to go here if you have no family." 

Retirement is far off for Betty Sargent, who is also in her 50's and a 
veteran of New York publishing. Today she is a partner in Fine Villas, where 
she specializes in Italian real estate. It took her five years to restore 
l'Abbadia, her house near San Quirico d'Orcia. "Coming from New York, which 
is a high-energy city, I'm sometimes frustrated with the pace of getting 
things done in Italy," she says. "But then I think there's something very 
healthy about it. This looks to me like a great place to be old. I love the 
life of the piazza, the sweet little old men sitting in the town square."

... It's a myth that the Tuscans are exceptionally hospitable; this is a 
stern society in which people may go for years without inviting you inside 
for a glass of water, Mr. Basile says. "It's not the same in southern Italy, 
where the guest is sacred, even if he is your enemy," he says. 

It doesn't matter, counters Elizabeth Helman Minchilli, the author of 
"Restoring a Home in Italy" and a longtime resident of Rome. Foreigners 
create their own social networks. They also restore houses and help preserve 
a rural landscape that might otherwise be neglected, she says. 

When the Sweets first moved in and were clearing the brush around their 
house, they removed a wild rose. "And when the man from the forestry 
department came around he noticed that one rose was missing and made us pay a 
fine for it," Mr. Sweet says. Bureaucratic nitpicking?

Not at all. That is why this corner of the world is beautiful, Mr. Sweet 
says.