Life in Lucca, Tuscany.

A life of dreaming about Italy, never quite satisfied by holidays to il bel paese. Time marches on. Study, career, marriage, two children - it’s a great life, but is this everything we want to experience? Or is there something a little bit different? A small track beckoning through the trees off the side of the well worn path?

Yes, it turns out. There is.

With very little time spent planning, we pack up our lives into a comically small storage locker. Bringing only what we can fit into our luggage allowance, we move to a town in Italy that we chose from Google Maps.

Lucca, Tuscany. Home. Welcome to our journey of truly discovering Italy and the Italian life.

These dispatches originally started as emails to my 92 year old grandmother. When I left, she made a request (which, if you know my grandmother, is not something that can be refused) that I write to her weekly.

She started sharing the letters with the rest of our family and then also friends, to the extent that the distribution list was getting out of hand.

So here we are. Welcome to The Italian Dispatch.

If you want to know more about me, our move to Italy, and life here please check out the FAQ section. Ask me anything you are curious about and I’ll add the answer there!