The underground pasta school in an abandoned Italian ghost town

There I was, sitting on a plush white sofa in a centuries-old stone house in the abandoned, 400-year-old Sardinian village of Battista. The house was a traditional stazzu (a granite dwelling common to farmers and shepherds in this north-eastern part of the island), and despite having stood empty for more than 40 years, a careful restoration made it feel as though time had stood still. There was a large stone fireplace, the original wood-burning cooking hearth, original stone flooring and a sleeping platform. Only the flat-screen TV served as a jarring reminder that you can sit in the past while staring at the present.

To get here, I’d followed narrow, tortuous roads perched above cavernous green valleys; a dramatic juxtaposition from the quaint cafes and colourful buildings of downtown Olbia 20km north, or the turquoise beaches and yachts in Porto Cervo further along that same curvaceous route. I saw no people along the drive but had been forced to stop abruptly at one point as dozens of sheep flooded the road, bells clanging wildly.