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LA STAMPA

Oh What Shall We Buy Today On eBay? How About A Village In Tuscany

Here's one way to try to get elected mayor - buy yourself a village. And thanks to eBay, you can make an offer with a click of your mouse.

Want to make a bid on the Borgo? (pelletica)
Want to make a bid on the Borgo? (pelletica)
STIA - It's time to add "Tuscan village" to the list of stuff you can buy on eBay. Facing a stalled Italian real estate market, the owners of the small village of Pratariccia are hoping to sell it to the highest bidder on the U.S.-based online auction exchange website.

For 50 years, Pratariccia, a hamlet in the municipality of Stia, located 40 kilometers away from Florence, has stood abandoned -- see the video below for proof. Now, you can buy its 25 deserted houses on the edge of wooded countryside and near historical abbeys. Original starting price: 2.5 million euros.

"The village is property of several owners who live in Tuscany and who have tried to sell it for years. Maybe this time they'll finally succeed," said the Mayor of Stia, Luca Santini. Several businessmen have already been in touch with the municipality and have pitched projects to renovate the village. Despite being badly rundown, a village in the heart of Tuscany is attractive property. But as usual for this well-protected region, strict zoning laws will apply.

Selling villages or small towns online is not that uncommon anymore. In the U.S. it happened, among others, for Waucunda, Washington, and Albert, Texas. In 2010 in Italy, the managers of San Basile, a village in the Calabria region, launched a website to sell vacant houses with asking prices that started from 5,000 Euros. Thousands of people from Italy and abroad made offers on that village. The bids are just now coming in for Pratariccia.

Read more from La Stampa in Italian.

*This is a digest, not a direct translation. Original article by Pierangelo Sapegno

Photo - pelletica

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Society

Why Every New Parent Should Travel Alone — Without Their Children

Argentine journalist Ignacio Pereyra travels to Italy alone to do some paperwork as his family stays behind. While he walks alone around Rome, he experiences mixed feelings: freedom, homesickness and nostalgia, and wonders what leads people to desire larger families.

Photo of a man sitting donw with his luggage at Athens' airport

Alone at Athens' international airport

Ignacio Pereyra

I realize it in the morning before leaving: I feel a certain level of excitement about traveling. It feels like enthusiasm, although it is confusing. I will go from Athens to Naples to see if I can finish the process for my Italian citizenship, which I started five years ago.

I started the process shortly after we left Buenos Aires, when my partner Irene and I had been married for two years and the idea of having children was on the vague but near horizon.

Now there are four of us and we have been living in Greece for more than two years. We arrived here in the middle of the pandemic, which left a mark on our lives, as in the lives of most of the people I know.

But now it is Sunday morning. I tell Lorenzo, my four-year-old son, that I am leaving for a few days: “No, no, Dad. You can’t go. Otherwise I’ll throw you into the sea.”

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