People forget that REAL Protestant God punished the Romans for killing Jesus by turning them into greasy, Pope-slobbering Italians who flop at every opportunity.
Yeah, but they do do some things very, very, very well.
If I were to ever ex-pat myself, somewhere in Italy would be my comfort zone. I fucking LOVE Paris and the souwf of France, and of course I have an abiding affection for Spain. But I tire of the French pretty quickly, the Spanish ... eh, I've suffered the Gallegos my entire lifetim, and my grandmother, whom I loved dearly and with whom I spent a good chunk of my childhood, was a classically nutty Barcelonian. Probably explains a lot about me actually.
Italy and Italians are the right mix of old and new for me, miles of shoreline, Greek history without having to suffer Greece, relatively inexpensive (for the most part), beautiful women and great food.
Yeah, they're kinda fuck ups in a lot of ways ... at least the southern part of the country. But they're my kind of fuck ups.
I like to think of Italy as Mexico for sophisticated people.