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
Lacio
The "dying town", reached only by a footbridge
Pienza
Toscana
The ideal Renaissance city, home of pecorino cheese
San Gimignano
Toscana
The UNESCO-listed medieval towers
Alberobello
Apulia
The capital of trulli houses
Positano
Campania
The vertical pearl of the Amalfi Coast
Riomaggiore
Liguria
The oldest village of the Cinque Terre
Castelmezzano
Basilicata
Set into the Lucanian Dolomites
Santo Stefano di Sessanio
Abruzos
A restored medieval village in the Gran Sasso mountains
Orta San Giulio
Piamonte
A romantic balcony over Lake Orta
Matera
Basilicata
The Sassi cave dwellings, a World Heritage Site