Gran Sasso National Laboratory

The Gran Sasso National Laboratory is one of the world's major underground physics laboratories, built beneath the massif beside the motorway tunnel. Most travellers will not visit the working labs, but knowing they are there adds a strange modern layer to the mountain.

If public open days or guided visits are available, they are worth considering. Otherwise treat it as a story attached to the landscape rather than a standard attraction.

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A story
The laboratory sits under roughly 1,400 metres of rock, which shields experiments from cosmic radiation. It is an odd pairing: above ground, shepherds and hikers cross a mountain landscape; underneath, physicists hunt neutrinos and dark matter.