A medieval mountain hamlet where history and designer fittings meet to create a unique cultural experience. There’s nothing quite like this albergo diffuso – meaning something like “scattered lodgings” – anywhere else in the world. Put together by a team passionate about conservation, the hotel is a collection of restored houses and suites dotted around a crumbling hilltop village in the Gran Sasso mountains of central Italy. Thanks to their efforts, the village has been saved from extinction, and its remit now is to pay reverence to its peasant past. This is not a typical hotel: it’s a step back in time, and like its sister project Grotte della Civita, it’s quite unique.