Foreign investors bet on Itgalian real estate – “Bricks”, the Italian investment par excellance, is attracting foreign investors, many of whom are considering buying property in Italy thanks to falling prices. This is not only true of sovereign funds of Qatar, which has decided to invest in the property development project of Milano Porta Nuova (buying 40% of an area valued at 2 billion euro as reported in the Financial Times on May 18 – Qatar buys into Milan Porta Nuova property project). There are also individual European investors who are looking at possible deals, especially for luxury properties (as Businessweek explained on May 23 –Germans Snap Up Italy’s Luxury Real Estate). The most interesting and exclusive locations are the ones in buyers demand. The New York Times analyzes this trend in an article about sales of villas on Lake Como (May 24 – Around Lake Como, a Buyers’ Market Opens Up).
Art, culture and technology – Last week, Italian culture was also in the pages of the foreign press. The New York Times interviewed Massimiliano Gioni, artistic director of the Venice Biennale, and the new head of an institution with 118 years of history ” (May 23 New Guide in Venice).Spain also showed its interest in Italian culture: the Barcelona Center of Contemporary Culture opened a major show on the “love affair” between Pasolini and Rome (El Pais, May 22 – Pasolini y Roma, historia de amor). There was also a report on Italian technological excellence. Arab News ran a piece on the new plans for university cooperation between Italy and Saudi Arabia (May 20 – Italy offers to train Saudi scholarship students) which will provide scholarships to graduate students in world-class technological centers with the aim of transferring competence acquired in the Saudi market.
Tourism, culinary arts and fashion – As always, there was news about sights to see. Sueddeutsche Zeitung discovered Sardinia during a tour of Isola di San Pietro (May 19 – Abgeschiedene Welt), while the New York Times Magazine described bike trips to see the sights and race in the Chianti region (May 20 – Chianti by Bike). The British paper The Independent returned to visit Ravello, Wagner’s favorite vacation spot for the composer’s 200th birthday (May 22 – Aria and Graces in Ravello), the Sueddeutsche Zeitung ran a piece on Italian cuisine while still in Bavaria, with an article on Italian restaurants in Munich with the intriguing title “Mamma mia!” (May 20)., and the Frakfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published a portrait of the Bel Paese, Italy’s beauties and contradictions (May 22 – Bella Italia in Bewegung ). Finally, along with tourism and cuisine, there was a report on a third strong point, fashion. Newsweek/The Daily Beast described the new Versus Versace collection, just presented in New York (May 18 – Donatella’s New Versus).