Smithsonian Magazine. Photographs by Francesco Lastrucci, Text by Ferdinando Cotugno. The world tends to think of Italy as the modern inheritor of ancient Rome, the national home of pizza, espresso and Leonardo da Vinci. But long before it was a unified nation, the boot-shaped peninsula was a loose collection of towns and villages, borghi in Italian, with wildly varied architecture, topography...
EU Observer. Silvia Marchetti. 31 December 2021. In recent years, dozens of depopulating rural towns across Italy - from the Alps to Sicily - have started selling crumbly old properties for just one euro, less than the cost of an espresso. The goal is to breathe new life into their dying communities and revamp the local economy. As villagers flee in search of a brighter future elsewhere there is...
CNN. Julia Buckley. May 13, 2021 When Alexandra Stubbs heard a friend had bought one of Italy's infamous €1 houses, she felt a little rattled." I did the usual kind of thing -- what the hell's that all about, how is that going to work? I'm really skeptical," she says.But underneath the skepticism, there was something else, too." I absolutely loved Sicily from visits in my 20s and...
NZ Herald. March 15, 2021. Thomas Bywater Another picturesque plot of Italian countryside is up for sale for next to nothing. Laurenzana is the latest town to put houses on sale to developers for the nominal fee of €1. About $1.66. Just across from the charming castle town neighbouring Mussomeli and Zungoli launched similar schemes. There are countless schemes €1 villas to drive rural regeneration....
New York Times. June 22, 2015. Elisabetta Povoledo. Looking for a home? One Sicilian town is making an offer that is hard to refuse: It is giving away houses. There is a catch, naturally. The properties in Gangi, a picturesque central town that straddles the Madonie Mountains, are generally dilapidated, some abandoned generations ago. The structures give new meaning to the term “fixer-upper,” and...