When most of your life is spent on the road, you have to make sure that where you come back to is perfect, as Jonathan Clarke discovered. Words Anna Gizowska

Ex-professional football player Jonathan Clarke has swapped English fry-ups and drizzle for cappuccino and panzerotti in the Italian sunshine. “Growing up I always knew I wanted to live somewhere warm, but I didn’t know where,” says Jonathan, who left school at 16 to play football for Doncaster for three-years before injuries put an end to his flourishing career.

Family holidays to Europe with regular trips to the South of France, Spain, Tenerife and Malta gave him a taste of life abroad and cemented his passion for travel. By his early 20s Jonathan was ready to set off for a new life in the sun, as a holiday representative with Airtours in Mallorca and Tenerife – a gruelling, but fun introduction to a working life abroad. “I worked morning, noon and night with hardly any sleep, but it was a great experience.” But there were certainly some surprises in store for the young rep.

“I remember there was a bug going around on a cruise ship and we had 200 dizzy passengers with bad stomachs fainting in our hotel reception. I’d never seen anything like it – it was horrible. It was like an emergency room. I can still picture it now,” laughs Jonathan, who went on to work at a ski resort restaurant in northern Italy for eight years before finding his dream job as a tour manager for Travelsphere in May 2005. Five years on, Jonathan couldn’t be happier.

And even though he had hung up his professional football boots for good, playing the game in Italy became his passport to learning the language. “I didn’t speak a word of Italian, and studying on my own wasn’t sinking in at all, so I joined a Sunday football team where nobody spoke any English and after two years I was fluent.”

And meeting an Italian girlfriend certainly helped. “It was a coincidental meeting. Silvia was the receptionist at one of the hotels that Travelsphere used, but I’d never bumped into her before. And then a friend of mine took me out one night and his friend was Sylvia. It was love at first sight.” That was in June 2007, and the pair have been together ever since.

Jonathan and Silvia share a two-bedroom apartment in the beautiful coastal town of Lido di Camaiore – 500 metres from the sea and in the foothills of the spectacular Apuan Alps. “It’s a beautiful and lively place with lots to do,” says Jonathan, who likes nothing better than reading the papers over a cappuccino and croissant at his favourite bar – the Pontile Café – at the end of the pier.

Read more in the March issue of Living Abroad magazine