Il passaporto - citizenship part 6

This post is one in a series of posts about gaining Italian citizenship, the previous post is linked below and you can find them all in the archives.

With a freshly minted certificate (or attestazione) informing me that I was indeed an Italian citizen, and an email telling me that the Consulate had also sent off my registration for the AIRE (more about the AIRE another time, I suspect!) - I had my bona fides.

The next significant task was to procure a passport - the really critical document that, post-Brexit, would allow me to settle in France with worrying too much about visa and other such issues.

After first thinking I would be retracing my steps to the Italian Consulate in London for a passport appointment I was delighted to read that this wouldn’t be necessary; there was an Honorary Consul right here in Bristol that would do the necessary biometrics and register me on the system.

So with some basic preparations complete I found myself driving over to east Bristol on a grey day in late May 2022. I had, now that I was well practiced in the bureaucratic arts, all the relevant documentation - including the requisite passport photos and simple form.

I was more used to the UK passport renewal form, which was 10 sections spread over many pages (it's now online but I suspect just as laborious). A form so daunting and apparently easy to mess up that you could previously pay the post office to check it for you before you sent it to make you’ve done it right.

No such issues for the Italians - their form is a thing of beauty - in as much as it is only one page. One page! This fit of streamlined process was however more than counterbalanced by fact that the only way you can pay for the passport itself was through the means of a Postal Order. This has to be bought in cash from a Post Office and comes with a chunky fee for the privilege.

So with the form, postal order, photos and a self-addressed special delivery envelope all ready, I arrived at a nondescript industrial estate - was I even in the right place?

Inside the Avondale Business Centre and what turned out to be a wood working shop of some description I said hello in Italian, only to be smiled at and greeted in return in English and in a broad Bristolian accent no less. The Honorary Consul’s office was tucked away inside down a corridor; I turned the corner to be greeted by the man himself, Luigi, as well as what I assumed was his wife with whom he was in animated discussion.

After a very short wait I had a couple of fingerprints taken, my form checked and was told to be on my way. I asked what the likely wait was to be on posting my application and told c4months.

Well three months later and bringing this story right up to the present day, my passport arrived on Saturday in mid-late August, a little unexpectedly - shown in the first photo in this post.

What a lovely surprise; just the boon needed before we go away for a trip to France in September, and as our planning for our move picks up pace. Exciting times indeed.