See Inside Italy's Ghost Villages

A lonely minaret juts into the air above the remnants of a once-luxurious shopping center in a northern Italian town built by an eccentric developer as the “City of Toys.”

The town of Consonno, once a sleepy farming village about an hour’s drive north of Milan, was bought up, razed, and redeveloped in the 1960s by entrepreneur Mario Bagno, who hoped to turn it into something resembling Las Vegas.

But in 1976, just a few years after the opening of this adult playground at the foot of the Alps, a landslide destroyed the entry road, turning Bagno’s dream into a ghost town. In recent years, the village has been the site of underground raves, two international hide-and-seek championships, and the explorations of tourists drawn by the eerie charm of Italy’s abandoned villages.CONTINUE........

Giuseppe Spagnuolo is the last resident of Roscigno Vecchia in southern Italy. Most people left because of dangerous landslides.

Amendolea was abandoned in the 1950s after a flood.

This small island in the Venice Lagoon was once a navy radio station, later became private property, and was eventually abandoned completely.

The last families of Narbona vacated the town in the 1960s.

CREDIT GOES: ABBY SEWELL

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRUNO ZANZOTTERA

REFERENCE: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC