Italy's hidden mountain museums in the clouds

The Dolomites, located in north-eastern Italy near the Austrian border, are hard country for an easy life. Full of stark pinnacles, stone cathedrals and fiercely savage vertical cliffs, the mountain range is characterised by landslides, avalanches and geology that has been in a constant battle with itself for more than 250 million years. Edges, crags and plateaus support little other than cable cars and via ferrata (iron roads) – climbing paths of steel cables, ladders and bridges built during World War One as improbable escape routes.

All of this makes the mountains an unlikely location for a collection of museums. Yet tucked away at high altitude, they have become gathering spots to reflect on nature, modern alpinism and climate change. What's more, they all have one thing in common: record-breaking climber Reinhold Messner.

Messner has been confronting extreme challenges for much of his life. In 1980, the Italian made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest. By 1986, he'd conquered the world's 14 highest mountains before anyone else, and without supplementary oxygen. In the years that followed, he dragged a sled unaided across both Greenland and Antarctica. His triumphs are enough to stir anyone's inner explorer.

Messner might be regarded as one of history's greatest climbers, but he's also a keeper of stories. Since summiting his first mountain aged five, he has written 80 books about his white-knuckle expeditions, and, even at 81 years old, the German speaker from Brixen in South Tyrol in the north of Italy is not preparing to slow down. If anything, he has many more stories to tell.