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
Toscane
The ideal Renaissance city, home of pecorino cheese
San Gimignano
Toscane
The UNESCO-listed medieval towers
Alberobello
Pouilles
The capital of trulli houses
Positano
Campanie
The vertical pearl of the Amalfi Coast
Riomaggiore
Ligurie
The oldest village of the Cinque Terre
Castelmezzano
Basilicate
Set into the Lucanian Dolomites
Santo Stefano di Sessanio
Abruzzes
A restored medieval village in the Gran Sasso mountains
Orta San Giulio
Piémont
A romantic balcony over Lake Orta
Matera
Basilicate
The Sassi cave dwellings, a World Heritage Site