Thanks to some once-forgotten, revived villages in Italy, visitors from all over the world can review the meaning of travel. Instead of visiting a place, they can immerse themselves in its soul and history. This is a unique story about travel and hospitality and what’s called the Sextantio project.
It all started in the late 1990s when Swedish-Italian Daniele Kihlgren had his first encounter with Santo Stefano di Sessanio when he was passing through. Santo Stefano was one of Italy’s many ghostly, abandoned villages, and he wanted to save it before developers would take over. And so the idea for a unique kind of place to stay for travellers was born.
It had to be a place where visitors could stay in amongst the dwellings of a village. In such a way, that they would be able to get a sense of its life: history and present. So, after building the seperate hotel restaurant with his friends, Kilhlgren set out to breathe new life into the village with unique places to stay for visitors. Keeping the integrity of the building and the essence of local life intact in each room. He did this with local people and with those who could see his vision.
Traces of ancient rural life
What that means is that today, Santo Stefano’s visitors can find a unique location to visit. They can also find a place that offers a few different perspectives on what it means to travel. Thanks to its Albergo Diffuso (or Scattered Inn) concept, they can stay among a village its inhabitants themselves. It is also where, as Kihlgren put it, they can find traces of a bygone countryside and ancient rural life.
For example, visitors might stay in the very room where women and children once told each other stories. A space where they kept warm in the winter, together with the cattle returning from the mountains. Or they can dine at a restaurant whose menus are inspired by local cooking methods of the past. Age-old ways of cooking, collected through video interviews with the locals. If they’re lucky, they might even encounter a bartender at the small local café, who happens to be the granddaughter of a local shepherd.
Slow travel
Santo Stefano and its Albergo Diffuso concept would later become the prototype for further projects. What binds them all, is their ability to lend themselves perfectly for slow travel. With so much history and local life kept intact, travellors have the opportunity to be living among it, even just for a while.
So, the Sexantio Le Grotte della Civita in South Italy has been open since 2009. It dates back to Stone and Bronze ages and was once home to monasteries from the Middle Ages. In addition to the 18 rooms that comprise it, there is an old church, the Cripta della Civita. This is now in use as a communal area.
The additional Palazzo della Civita in Matera has been open since the summer of 2023. It includes a palace from the seventeenth century and a church built out of the rocks, also called a Rupestrian church. Plus there are elements that have been inspired by local traditions.
Today, Santo Stefano’s visitors can find a unique location to visit. They can also find a place that offers a few different perspectives on what it means to travel.
Other places waiting to be revived
Sextantio Rwanda’s Capanne (huts) Project at the remote location on Nkombo Island in Africa has also been open since 2022.
“The identity of a place, and its preservation, gave life to the projects in the villages of Santo Stefano di Sessanio and in the Sassi of Matera in Italy,” said Kihlgren. He added: “It now wants to be revived with a similar philosophy in a different place of marginality: Nkombo Island, Lake Kivu, Rwanda.”
Kihlgren’s team has interviewed local elders from the area, whose knowledge could help implement the project. So, visitors can find an amalgamation of different religions, cultures, and schools of thought.
Because, as Kihlgren said, these elders “were all part of a population with a certain religious syncretism.” In line with the essence of the Sextantio locations, the project includes local culture, plants and birds.
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