Italy guards hundreds of villages where stone, history and silence compose landscapes unlike anywhere else. Here is our selection of the most extraordinary: from Civita di Bagnoregio, the "dying town" suspended on its tuff pedestal, to the cave-carved Sassi of Matera, to the grey rooftops of Castelmezzano set into the Lucanian Dolomites.
Bagnoregio
Latium
The "dying town", reached only by a footbridge
Pienza
Toskana
The ideal Renaissance city, home of pecorino cheese
San Gimignano
Toskana
The UNESCO-listed medieval towers
Alberobello
Apulien
The capital of trulli houses
Positano
Kampanien
The vertical pearl of the Amalfi Coast
Riomaggiore
Ligurien
The oldest village of the Cinque Terre
Castelmezzano
Basilikata
Set into the Lucanian Dolomites
Santo Stefano di Sessanio
Abruzzen
A restored medieval village in the Gran Sasso mountains
Orta San Giulio
Piemont
A romantic balcony over Lake Orta
Matera
Basilikata
The Sassi cave dwellings, a World Heritage Site