Hi, I am a retired Australian citizen

Good luck with your major adventure! Obviously you are starting in the right places and getting some very important background information. I would suggest a couple of small things which cost little. Firstly check out “residency Australian in Italy” as a search both on the web and all the forums you can find. Think you will find many forums from a web search and from those posts you will discover many more major issue that crop up time and time again. So note these down and work through each as further research to see how they fit with your own personal situation. I’m sure others here will give you very good specific information about an Australian looking to move to Italy. However you need to be sure yourself that this information is correct based on you own knowledge of your circumstances. Modicasa here has provided so much information that we found invaluable in the past for us and others that I would recommend for a second source of information – a book about moving to live in Italy. I’m sure he has produced such like and will look to provide you with a link if he does not in the meantime reply. A simple and small cost item that you can carry around and read, in the scheme of things a very cheap item when you consider other costs involved. We had “Buying a Home in Italy” by David Hampshire which I can’t say provided us with masses of information if I remember correctly, but I do know it pointed us in the right direction for items to research – kind of check list maker. I’m sure the thing Modi produced was more of an electronic format and therefore easier to update and you gained access to the updates. Once you have gained all this information you should then try to get the official view of the information you think is relevant to your situation e.g. I’ve just looked at our book and it seems to indicate as an non-eu citizen you would be allowed 90 days here in Italy. Something that important you need to confirm officially. Best of luck with your wonderful venture!

Thank you, Lewis for your encouragement. Amazon has the Hampshire Book and I have bought it together with Gordon Neale's "Buying a House in Italy". That should do it. There's a fair bit on the web as well. Thanks. I have the help of my son's partner in Italy as well. Cheers, James