The Sacra di San Michele, a haunting 10th-century abbey-crowning Mount Pirchiriano at the entrance to Val di Susa, Piedmont, is Italy’s most dramatic medieval monument. Perched 960 m above the valley like an eagle’s nest, it inspired Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. Highlights: the vertigo-inducing Zodiac Portal carved with fantastical beasts, the 41-metre Torre della Monaca, the Scalone dei Morti staircase where monks’ bones once rested, and the panoramic terrace gazing across the Alps to Tu