curl_exec è andato a buon fine.
CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE era 200 come volevamo: curl_getinfo:
Array
(
[url] => http://ip-api.com/json/172.70.131.214?fields=city
[content_type] => application/json; charset=utf-8
[http_code] => 200
[header_size] => 192
[request_size] => 268
[filetime] => -1
[ssl_verify_result] => 0
[redirect_count] => 0
[total_time] => 0.051982
[namelookup_time] => 1.8E-5
[connect_time] => 5.4E-5
[pretransfer_time] => 6.9E-5
[size_upload] => 0
[size_download] => 18
[speed_download] => 346
[speed_upload] => 0
[download_content_length] => 18
[upload_content_length] => -1
[starttransfer_time] => 0.051979
[redirect_time] => 0
[redirect_url] =>
)
Estraendo solo il campo city ottengo: Chicago