After two long years of screen time and staying home, the 2022 definition of luxury is experience. But, let’s go further. How about a time-shifting, immersive experience? That you can find at Sextantio, an Italian albergo diffuso set within the medieval village of Santo Stefano di Sessanio in Abruzzo. Only two hours from Rome, in the high-altitude Gran Sasso national park, Sextantio truly occupies another time and space.

A project of entrepreneur/historian Daniele Elow Kihlgren, who also developed the Matera sassi property, Sextantio proves the idea that living within the original footprint, as peasants did for hundreds of years, can be an indelible experience. Preserving history with minimal impact was possible here, as Kihlgren says, because the village was actually saved by being abandoned.