For Sale: Entire Italian Village

For just $780,000, you could become signore of your own Italian village—albeit one without any villagers. An abandoned medieval village in the heart of one of Italy's biggest national parks has been put up for sale by the local council and an elderly man who owns some of its crumbling stone buildings, the Telegraph reports. The settlement, first mentioned in records in 1059, includes 10 houses and a half-ruined 13th century church.

Valle Piola lies in an area of Italy's central Abruzzo region that lost much of its population as sheep farming declined. The village "has been deserted for about 30 years," says the mayor of a nearby town. "It's a beautiful spot, a real jewel, and the buildings are all made of local stone. We're not giving an estimate of how much it would cost to make the houses habitable—it will be up to the buyer to come up with a plan." (More Italy stories.)