Italy: Weight loss secrets, the man who built a plane and more

Rome: In travel news this week, the Italian village whose residents boast of a “fat-killing gene,” the man who built a plane for his family in his garden and the woman who asked a stranger for directions then got engaged to him two weeks later.

In the shores of Italy’s Lake Garda, there’s a fishing village with a secret: Many of its residents claim to carry a special gene that kills fat and cholesterol, which has made them a medical marvel.

But in another Italian tourist center, Amalfi, an Englishwoman shed weight this week the old-fashioned way: by stripping naked. Unfortunately, she chose to disrobe on the cathedral steps, and the local police were less than impressed.

One region giving a warm welcome to (fully dressed) sightseers is Friuli Venezia Giulia, in Italy’s northeast, which is paying people just to visit. You need to stay there two nights, and in exchange, they’ll reimburse your travel from anywhere in the country.

And this week, Stanley Tucci visits Puglia — a beach lovers’ paradise located in the heel of Italy’s boot. “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.”

An England-based engineer got his private pilot’s license in 2019 and then built a plane for his family right in his own garden. Makes those shelves you put up last year look pretty lame, doesn’t it?

Then there was the Welshman who bought a former movie star’s home in the French countryside and spent $300,000 restoring the swimming pool to its former glory.

And in Sicily, a group of Argentinian doctors is facing one of their toughest resuscitation challenges yet: They’ve been drafted to help reverse the fortunes of an Italian village that has been selling dilapidated homes at bargain €1 prices.

Hong Kong — now reopening to tourism — has one of the world’s toughest dining scenes. There are the sky-high rents, the expensive food imports and most important of all, the knife-sharp competition. An insider reveals secrets direct from its beating heart.

Mushrooms are popular in food cultures around the world, but alongside the likes of olives and cilantro, they’re also among the most likely to be pushed to the side of the plate by certain diners. Why are some foods so polarizing? Experts explain.

French Canadian Rachel Décoste traveled to West Africa’s Republic of Benin in 2018 to explore her history. On her first day, she asked a stranger for directions, and it was a move that would change her future, too. Two weeks later, they were engaged.

That’s the kind of love story many young Western women are hoping for when traveling to South Korea, in a social phenomenon dubbed “the Netflix effect.” Disappointed with the dating cultures of their home countries, they come in search of the cultured, romantic Korean men they’ve seen portrayed on screen. But they find fiction needs to be weighed against reality.

Sure, sometimes it’s great to see a majestic deer stag or elegantly poised coconut octopus, like in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. But in a week when the news cycle got particularly chaotic — hi, Liz — it can be good to take a moment to laugh at an exasperated penguin or some roughhousing meerkats. Step forward, the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards finalists.