When you step on to the cable car from Fonte Cerreto in the springtime, you can never tell if you are going to get sudden blizzards or boiling sun as you reach the top. I had checked the forecast and, as I left the warm valley behind, was ready to catch the last skiing of the season when I reached Gran Sasso, the highest peak in central Italy's Apennine range. What I wasn't ready for was the unusual history of the ski lodge that awaited me.
The Hotel Campo Imperatore ski lodge, an art deco jewel at 7,000ft, is still surrounded by snow drifts in early May. While most mountain refuges pack hikers and skiers in like sardines, it has room for a grand piano in the panoramic dining room. And among its bedrooms is the room once occupied by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. It has been preserved unchanged since he was held prisoner there for 12 days in 1943 right down to the same elegant wooden furniture, the same bed and even the same, now pretty soggy, mattress. The sheets are new, but the originals are folded in the cupboard if you take your history that seriously.
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