Medieval architects, deserted towns and remote countryside -- what sounds like the ingredients for a horror movie could actually be the recipe for the perfect Covid-era hotel. Since the 1990s, Italy has been pioneering a tourism model known as "albergo diffuso" -- or scattered hotel. These involve installing a full hotel into various buildings of a largely abandoned village.

Most of these centuries-old villages have suffered from depopulation as residents move to bigger cities in search of work -- the same problem that has inspired many Italian villages to sell off homes for next to nothing.