Instead of watching "Inside Tommy Hilfiger's $50 million Plaza Hotel Penthouse" I enjoy watching this... I get the feeling that more and more people want just to live a life in harmony, creativity, and close to nature.

The happiest of them all is that dog. He's having a good time. Living close to nature. Beautiful place to live.

My partner found this after we had moved to italy to restore an old abandoned water mill. I see things exactly the way Maurizio does. Working on the building and the land makes me so very happy. I put all the energy and love that i have into this place because it just seems like the right thing to do, both for the mill and for me. We were told that no one could remember anyone living here but today a car arrived and a 79 yr old woman got out. She told me that she had lived here when she was a little girl but her family had emigrated to America. She was so happy that someone had finally come to bring love to the place that she once called home, she kept repeating " sono cosi felice". It was all i could do to not cry. It will take me some time to finish as i work alone but its not a race and i'm learning as i go. We are not wealthy, far from it but i feel better off than any one i know who is still on the treadmill.

Best kind of footage!! No background music, no hype, no long intro, has captions. SUBSCRIBING! I truly hope others watch this that make youtube videos like this and take notes on how it should be done! Beautiful scenery, interesting topic and very informative! Thank you!

That valley is heavenly, imagine having a morning coffee on that patio

Does anyone want to quit the rat race and do something similar? I'm so fed up with it all.

This is Italy. A gem of a place, an artist of a man.

Honestly so beautiful that a village left for centuries is being lived in again. I'm sure the original inhabitants would be so happy to see that their dear village is growing again.

I live in a small borgo in the hills of northern Tuscany. There are only 12 of us in the village in the winter. Others come in the summer because it is so pleasant here. All the houses are made of stone. Only a few are rendered. The village I am told was built around the 12th century. My house is 800 years old. I bought it partially renovated but had to finish the work. I have learned that we have to use special stucco and paint on the inside so the walls can breathe. In torrential rains, I have had the damp come through the stones right onto the inside walls. Something I never get used to haha. A stone house stays cooler in the summer and retains heat in the winter. Living in a house like this is an experience of a lifetime, so I enjoyed your video very much.

I love how this guy switches between italian and English making the subtitle guy's job hell

Italian dude: "Do you want me to talk in italian or english?" Interviewer: "Yes."

I was stationed in Italy for several years, on the mainland, Sicily and Sardegna. I did a lot of exploring with my mountain bike and found many structures like this and often thought how cool it would be to rebuild and live in one. I envy these people and what they have done. It's really something very special. I hope you enjoy.

Isn't it ironic that some of the same reasons that this village was abandoned are what attracts people to it now. The location is magical, and the old stone buildings are the stuff of dreams. This would be like living in a fairy tale. I'm truly sad that I don't have enough time left to tackle something so wonderful.

The stone buildings, the mountains and valleys, it's all a feast for the eyes. Beautiful!

That guy is an absolute inspiration. Couldn't agree with him more at the profound sadness of old buildings like this being torn down / lost to history due to neglect and ignorance towards the thousands of hours it took for our ancestors to actually build them. These buildings were around before any of us were born, and if maintained, they'll be here for centuries longer. We just don't make buildings to such a high quality anymore.

OMG, this is such a beautiful project! Congrats Maurizio. It's the end of 2021, I wonder what's it like there now. I loved what he said about being just a guest in the house.

The complexity and irregularities are pleasing to my eye. Newer more sterile buildings can be taken in at a glance, and once seen there is no reason to keep looking. What a great place for kids to grow up in. The stairs are scary.

What they are doing is fascinating. Going backwards and forwards in time, from the present. Requires the knowledge of the elders, the planning of the adults, and the physicality of the youth to make all of this happen.

That place is magical! Thank you for your hard work and allowing the world to witness it.

Gotta love the passion of the Italians. So much history in those hills.

The baby has no idea how fortunate he will be to grow up in such a beautiful environment. How such places can be abandoned baffles me.

Amazing to see how a dead village comes back to life! Thanks to the hard work of these people with love and care.

Character is an understatement. Amazing architecture and mountainous views! Thanks for sharing.

It's like those village in fairytales. Beautiful. If I live there I would have a vegetable garden, flower garden, honeybees, chickens.

"When the nature starts to reappropriate the place, it's a completely different energy...." What a story. I was living not far from here across the border in Ticino. Beautiful area with deep cut natural character. Smart bilingual production by Kirsten.

I love when I see people save an old structure with hard work and love. These places are unique, timeless, and noble. Without care they eventually fall, with them something very special disappears forever.

Such a beautiful place: it feels equally ancient and timeless. The stone buildings, the layout of the buildings, the surrounding natural beauty - it’s all so pleasing to the eye and satisfying to the soul. What an amazing project.

What a beautiful home, beautiful village, and beautiful people. This kind of thing is what restored my faith in humanity. When people respect their history, their culture, nature, and really considerate for greater good. I really wish I could do this too one day. Thankyou so much for the video!

This is satisfying on so many levels. Preserving and recapturing stone masonry from 500 yo homes presents sustainable in its essence. Apply passive solar and rain harvesting techniques with or in the rebuilding process and small scale communities are blessings in truth.

Wow. Maurizio, you are saving history. If only there were more people like you in the world. What stories those walls could tell! Grazie.

Honestly, if I were to ever move to Italy, Ghesc looks like a place I would truly enjoy! I was born, and grew up, as a boy, in mountain and forest areas in the U.S. Plus, medieval architecture is a fascination of mine!

This is why I love watching videos like this. So much went on in the unknown parts of Europe for the past thousands of years and when you find something like this, it truly feels magical.

What a beautiful place to wake up to every morning.

The light was magnificent! Oh, to go there and paint. I can see why the old masters came from Italy. I am so glad these places are getting saved.

The view from that balcony...Lovely. What a project. I love how they haven’t tried to be modern or old fashioned too much either way. Just gone with nice, simple ideas that fit the feel of the village and buildings.

This is like back to the future where we will once again live in villages and communities we are drawn to, living amongst land and folk we feel a connection to. Yay. . .

It is reassuring to see young people participating in the rebuilding of a community.

I. Love. This. 💕 Historic, romantic, beautiful, peaceful. 🌲 Thank You Kirsten! 🍀

Impressed with how Maurizio Cesprini finished the old Building with Plaster. An excellent job in providing Rooms that loose less heat. Great work Maurizio, well done.

Can we all please thank Kirsten for her most WONDERFUL and unique contribution to our lives. Ive been following since she only had a few thousand followers like 2012!!! THANK YOU KIRSTEN

What a wonderful story. I once had dreams of doing this long ago, but health problems ended those dreams. He is an intelligent and warm man, along with his wife, they are rebuilding not only history, but their own dreams. Thank you for sharing this with us.

Such a beautiful and meaningful existence. What an honor and labor of love to restore the house and surrounding village. A truly ideal way to raise a family too.

I love how the dog positions himself with his paws dangling over the stair ledge to keep an eye out for whomever may venture up. Bet he loves living there.

you are doing a outstanding project,i am sure you would be able to finish it,best wises to you SENIOR.

These old villages are such beautiful, magical places! I am so happy to see someone saving and appreciating them that it brings me to tears. I hope this spreads so all of them can be saved and restored!

to take on something like this can say more about the person's character than it would about the buildings themselves. after all it's those who have envisioned, constructed and persisted to make or continue a conception like this to start with. -amazing tasks of passion and pride.

Well done Maurizio and Paola for saving a piece of Italian history. They have worked so hard and in such a beautiful location. The authorities show be fast tracking planning permission to help regenerate rural Italy, not slowing it down which is generally the case.

I’ve stayed in a village just like this a few years ago that had been completely restored by a developer. It was absolutely magical and I now see what a huge job it must have been, especially because it was significanty larger than this village. If anyone wants, I can find the name so you can look it up.

This is a genius project. Rebuilding the old abandoned villages. Love to participate or live there...I wish❤️

Honestly Kirsten, if I ever meet a PBS producer I'm showing them your videos. So beautifully shot and enthralling. You are truly gifted at sharing a patchwork of unique homes and home building stories. I'm glad I stumbled upon your channel looking for "van life" videos months ago.

Maurizio, I admire you and your wife for the beautiful restorations to revive a Italian village ruin and made it your beautiful home. Your perseverance and back breaking work made it truly worthwhile. What a blessing to wake up, to be surrounded, and to enjoy such natural beauty and landscape every single day! Thank you for sharing your wonderful journey, Ciao! 🙏❣️🙏

Amazing man, his enthusiasm in history is great. Everything can a human do as you can see. Realy positive video, greetings from Czech rep.

Well this is amazing what he's doing. just love the old buildings and structures. Sure is a lot of hard work but a for him it looks like a Work of Love. thanks for sharing

It reminds me of the village of my forefathers in Greece. Very similar architecture and unfortunately very similar fate during the 1900s. Maybe it's time for me to do something about it. Thank you for the video. Very inspiring.

just watched this episode again. Very nice to see how this family has built themselves a nice home, and is working with interested people/students to understand traditional building techniques. Nice drone shot at the end.

A M A Z I N G. Always telling my hubby let’s sell our home in Cali and do this. Beautiful home and family,

Absolutely amazing scenery and atmosphere. Love that medieval village vibe

I feel like the government should hire him to start a new initiative to repopulate abandoned villages such as this one.

What an incredible project. Thank you for honoring the past and making this a learning opportunity for so many.

This place fully restored and modernized as far as plumbing and wiring would be a dream home. Such beautiful bones.

This is so fantastic. This is how people should live. If I had all the money I needed I would live like this. I think we are so far gone as a society. People are suffering so much. Life is so short.

The best video Kirsten's done in a while, I find. Thank You.

What a beautiful venture. I hope more people will join him in reviving these old villages. That would be such an incredible thing to see in the end; what other creative minds come up with.

My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed watching this. It's both inspiring and lovely to see someone with a passion putting it to good use and in the process making a difference.

I did same thing as you did with a old house in Romania In the process I learn is much expensive to restore then build a house from scratch

It's great to see these gems won't go to waste. I hope they can renovate the entire complex. It would make a really nice BnB.

Kirsten, I love your channel. I originally found it because of the shanty boat episode. You find the most unique material and you really get people to talk about their projects in detail. I've watched quite a few now, even stuff I'm not interested in doing myself. I've watched the entire video every time, it's captivating.

This is amazing and lovely! The lack of railing on their stairs is making me nervous though.

I just spent 127K buying a house, but I what I should have done was reclaim an abandoned village in Europe.

Thanks for making videos like this. It's incredible to see people putting their hearts and souls into restoring and saving these buildings and small villages.

Congratulations, for the courageous work you have done. The place with those stone houses is fairytale. I hope this village will come back to life with many young couples like you to keep a historical treasure alive.👍👏👏❣️

What I live the most about this is the layout. How the houses and the alleys are positioned. Simply amazing.

Fantastic....teaching and learning, the young and the elders together. So much brilliant information. Great camera work too!

This is a wonderful concept. There's a love for history and the beautiful idea of re-using and considering oneself as a "guest" in these houses is magical. Thank you for doing this, I hope I can visit or live there soon!

I’m ready to go Work for this guy !!!! Learn the ancient ways , he is living his best life

An incredible character. Aside from the village and the work there is this chap… associating with polytechnics, theatre, festivities bringing life into a medieval village and teaching rediscovered skills. He and his wife are special,souls. ❤️🏆

This is one of my new favorite videos you have made. Thanks for sharing!

Thankful for young people that appreciate the past & try to restore using proper methods. Thank you, Kirsten & Co. for reporting on the good things going on in the world & helping us visit them. May God bless you all.

This is a great video. I love people like this guy. Protecting ancient sites. I'm a Native American Monitor, which means I look for artifacts and other cultural resources on construction sites. Thanks for the video.

Best YT Video so far, very raw and natural just like what you featured. And I just love the simplicity of living that village would offer. I also applauded the energy and positivity of the man in re-building the old village and sharing this with the younger generation indeed the history of the place the craftmanship in stone building will continue to live on...

This video reminds me as a kid in Bagni Di Lucca (Italy) spending summer holidays with the family in a rock home built in the 1700s where my mum was born, lots of happy memories:)

I restored an abandoned mas in the foothills of the Cevennes in the 90s. Pure Peter Mayle, with sparrows flying above my bed. Such happy memories. There were 40 of us in the hamlet and one of my neighbours went for an evening walk with his pet boar. Another neighbour had a goat herd and made cheese. The fireplace in his kitchen was so large, you sat inside it. Of course, the restoration came with lots of stress, but once finished, it was a work of art. The Artisans who worked on the project were artists. Great memories :)

I Loved this documentary on rebuilding and bringing back to life an ancient village. Beauty Grace and Strength

It's truly special that they get to do this and live in a part of history. So beautiful and priceless.

Let me put first: 1. I like your videos really a lot and I am a fan and follower since your very early days. 2. I know the zone quite well, not precisely this valley and municipality, but many others in that zone on the Swiss and Italian side of the border including building requirements, cultural and legal realities etc. The important fact, that your documentary is completely excluding, is the question "why did these villages become ghost towns"? And the answer is unfortunately not the simple "make believe" answer Maurizio is trying to provide when saying that it is cheaper to restore an abandoned house than to buy an apartment in the populated spots. There are a few facts to the equation and they are important in order to have a complete picture: 1. Many of these valleys are cut off during winter due to missing services by the state/ local authorities = snow clearing (his place being close to serviced roads, which I am sure is why he chose the place ;-))). As a result, local infrastructure completely broke down (shops/ bars etc.) and these places have become at max. summer holiday villages and are now dying out completely due to political decisions (in CH, you are no longer allowed to buy these houses as "secondary residences") and to the fact that they are an ecological nightmare. 2. The villages are missing a century worth of political and infrastructural development not only but mainly due to certain cultural mindsets. A concrete example to show this more clearly: The Swiss state has invested milliards into modernizing the Gotthard tunnel in order to make access to the Swiss region South of the Alps and to Milan easier by cutting down travel by 1 hour. After decades (!!!) of debates and planning time, Italy has not been able to come up with a plan and budget to modernize its connection to this line that would allow for better access for villages like the one of Maurizio. We are talking about 10 miles of train tracks or public streets to cover ..... 3. In more than a century, the municipalities/ state have not invested into infrastructure such as water, electricity, sewage systems, but oblige you when buying such houses to put such systems into place at own cost ..... this and all the additional requirements make such renovations a very well known money pit; that's why you won't get any bank support for such projects .... and the 25.000 EUR that Maurizio mentioned is not the real number that a "normal" citizen would be pay. 4. Maurizio is well hiding the fact that he is a very well connected with the state and local municipality (he is holding or held a public office), which is one of the 2 very essential keys to this project ... you can get a proof of that when looking at his staircase and the second floor living ... no "normal citizen" would have got a building permit and NOT having to install a hand rail or structural screened in 2nd floor, let alone speaking of adding to the building as he is planning. And I don't want to know about all the other adjustments he made to the building to meet 21st century living conditions. 5. The second essential key to the project is the use of "free labour" by organising summer camps to have students work for free there. If he was honest, he would have put this fact more concretely into his presentation of his projects, instead of stating 25.000 EUR plus 1.000 hours which are definitely NOT including the hours and the net worth of the free work that were put into the project. And this is why the "everybody can do that" is a total delusion from the real facts. I think that the project in itself is extremely interesting and well worth being presented in this channel, but I think the quality of such videos comes not only from a high quality script and visual execution but from a holistic presentation of all the facts that go into and make such projects work.

Fantastic story We here in USA moved into an abandoned 1850 log cabin 30 years ago we LOVE the experience and appreciate our ability to resurrect and add onto an old homestead

Such a great video and find for you. And Maurizio the perfect host being so well-spoken and thoughtful.

Beautiful job! What a challenge to restore. You've done lovely work. May God bless your journey 😍

One of your best ones yet IMHO. I would love this place. Great work everybody, and a greater idea. Preserving history!

An amazing story about restoring and re-purposing a historical village. While the process has it flaws as pointed out, anyway you look at it, its a preservation effort. While Murizio and Paola (my wifes name as well) are rebuilding we need to focus on the positives that without people like this history will be lost and forgotten. That village is in a beautiful area and has a great view of the valley. Many of us would appreciate living there. It is hoped that the entire village will one day come to life again.

His love and devotion for the place is evident and having students involved in the restoration is a very good learning process. By his careful sensitive restoring and reviving techniques, the village can be a heritage wonder.

Amazing. Well done for keeping the lovely historical village and keeping its great character. Heart warming stuff!!!

Wow this is insane. What a dream location to live and what a beautiful house! I hope I can do the same one day

Missing Italia, my friends there and your beautiful language. The village is such a lovely surprise. Strong work you 2 have done together. Best wishes.

HERMOSO! - Yes, continue to encourage people to save these beautiful towns.

This is so awesome. Thanks so very very very much for sharing. It's beautiful. I can see your visions by restoration you are doing. God bless. 💙🇨🇱love from Texas

What a beautiful scenery, and the most important is the air still fresh. It's a good choice to rebuilt/reconstruct the old buildings

That's amazing! Love your channel by the way :)

I love this so much. What inspiring, beautiful and significant work. A true labour of love.