Mascognaz is one of the Ayas Valley’s 35 towns at 1,800 meters of altitude. It is also a wonderful albergo diffuso (a virtual hotel solution with accommodations spread in an area, instead of concentrated in a single building) that belongs to “that ancient world” of the “eternal winter that dominated summer pastures”, so beautifully described by novelist Paolo Cognetti in his “Le otto montagne”, winner of the 2017 Strega Award.

Cognetti has said his book was inspired by the summer holidays of his own childhood, when his father would sit down for dinner “dusty, sunburnt, tired and happy” after trekking, and “tell stories about chamois and ibex, nights out camping, starry skies, and snow that up high could fall even in August.”