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