REVEALED: The Italian cities with the 'best' quality of life for retirees
That's the main takeaway from a ranking of the best Italian cities for residents aged over 65 published by Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore on Monday.
All of the top ten-ranked cities were in the north of the country, with the top three concentrated in the northeastern Triveneto area.
At the head of the pack was the city of Bolzano, near Italy's border with Austria, which regularly tops quality of life rankings.
South Tyrol's capital scored highly for its above-average social spending on the elderly, life expectancy, and availability of libraries, as well as low rates of use of medication for chronic health conditions and anti-obesity drugs.
In second place came Treviso, north of Venice, which performed well in all areas except for the number of nurses per 100,000 inhabitants.
The Veneto city was followed by Trento, which topped the list for life expectancy.
Rounding out the top ten were Como, Cremona, Verona, Vicenza, Lodi, Parma and Aosta.
Of the top 40 towns and cities ranked, 38 were in the north, with the central city of Macerata appearing in 25th place, and Nuoro, Sardinia, ranked 39th.
36 of the bottom 40 cities, by contrast, were in the centre-south, with just Savona (74th place), Verbano-Cusio-Ossola (90th), Imperia (92nd) and Massa-Carrara (93rd) located in the north.
Southern Italian towns and cities were penalised due to the lower availability of public services, including hospital beds, as well as lower amounts paid out in pensions in the poorer half of the country.
At the very bottom of the list, in 107th place was the Sicilian city of Trapani, which performed poorly on almost all metrics including life expectancy, public spending on the elderly, and availability of libraries and green spaces.
Agrigento, on Sicily's western coastline, came 106th, preceded by Reggio Calabria at 105th.
They were joined in the bottom ten by Vibo Valentia, Messina, Crotone, Terni, Caltanissetta, Caserta and Cosenza.
Rome ranked towards the middle of the pack at 63rd place, performing worse than Venice (24th), Bologna (27th), Milan (34th), and Florence (46th).
Palermo came in a low 89th, but still managed to beat Naples (91st).
While such rankings provide a clear picture of a town or city's social and health services and public amenities, they often fail to consider factors that may have an equally strong bearing on quality of life.
Il Sole 24 Ore's survey, for example, didn't take into account climate, cost of living, or access to nature – all things that people looking to retire in Italy from abroad are likely to consider important.
Readers responding to our surveys in the past have recommended southern or central Italy as the best place to retire, pointing to the warm weather, long stretches of coastline, and friendliness of locals.
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