taking sides: France vs Italy

Italy Italy Italy. Im not crazy about Rome but Id live in Assisi for sure. Italian riveria is bitchin and I like being in southern Italy, looking around and realising im the only non dark haired brown eyed person. makes me feel like an alien.

France. While travelling in Italy as a tot, I got an Amoeba and nearly died and had such a horrible experience that I never went back!

I love Italy. There are several Italian regional cusines which are really great. There's lots of good wine. I'd have to say that I think the Italians generally better looking than than the French. However at both the upper and lower levels of wine, the French is more to my liking. The difference between Basque, Alsatian, and Provençal cuisines is greater than between any Italian regions. While Italy has lots of great fashion, Italians tend to wear their clothes in a flashy Mediterranean way that I find sometimes embarrassing and more often than do the French. Rome is beautiful but it's mostly a combination museum for tourists and administrative capital of Italy. Milan is where all the buisness is. Paris combines tourism, industry, government and a cosmopolitan lifestyle that is far more open to the world. I cannot read enough Italian to be a fair judge, but I think French intellectual and artistic culture is mostly superior and again, open as it to former colonies and the remnants of global francophilia, more international in scope. While they've both been giving each other a good run for the money with regards to misgovernment and corruption, I'd have to say that France, even under Chirac, looks better than Berlusconi's Italy.

I lived in Italy for three years and it can be a very frustrating place. They're both great countries to go on holiday in, but I think I'd rather live in Paris than Rome.

Holiday-wise, I'd probably prefer to rent a house in the Italian countryside. But living-wise, I'd prefer Paris, which is ten times more multicultural than anywhere in Italy.

Italian cuisine shades it over French, but France wins in the wine stakes, due to greater variety.

It's the 1986 second-round match all over again!

Oh - and it's 2-0!

Never been to either, but France has better movies.

France, easy. Better food, better wine, a better art scene, and even a better music scene (which isn't saying that much...). Also closer to Berlin, which is where I'd really prefer to live.

Offer me France and I'll hop and squeal with unabashed glee. Offer me Italy instead and I'll do the same, with no abatement. Offer me both and I'll hop twice as high and squeal twice as long. But make me POO and - no sweat - I'll stab my finger at France and call it good: bigger place, more to see, more to eat, more to appreciate.

This is such an easy choice, since it is almost perfectly meaningless. I'm not going either place any time soon.

Italy for the eyes, French for the heart.

I could never live in Italy but I would move back to Paris in a heartbeat.

My family live in France and I've attended Uni and lived in Florence and Rome. If pushed I would say France, the country just works better in the everyday. There is less messing with taxes and pay checks that make casual labour in Italy such a minefield. I love Italy, absolutely adore it, especially Rome, but I wouldn't live there again too soon or at least not working for an Italian. France, particularly Paris, is fantastic. There is a lot more to see and do, it is a nation with divides but nowhere near as deep and angry as Italy (recent riots included). It is also a great city to be young and feckless in, Rome tends to be a lot quieter and young Italians do not spend freely or go out much in the way that I like i.e. pubs, clubs and silliness.

If I could just go to one of them to live without work or similar I would choose to live in Sicily. It's so beautiful, the people are great fun and the lifestyle is among the most chilled I've ever seen. There is massive unemployment unfortunately but life is cheap there and the people really enjoy themselves.

Otherwise France: Better hospitals, more variety of cuisine and a government that isn't so openly corrupt!