10 Things to do in Valle d'Aosta That You Shouldn't Miss

Skyway Monte Bianco is much more than a cableway to reach 3,466 meters. It’s an idea: drawing man closer to the mountain and sky, broadening our horizons, overcoming boundaries. Beautiful landscapes to explore and the sky to meet.

An infinite snowy area that begins at 1,524 metres, in Valtournenche, embraces Breuil-Cervinia, rises up to 3,480 metres of Plateau Rosà, touches the 4,000 m peak of Piccolo Cervino, climbes up to 4,478 m to the top of the Cervino. An area where the infinite snow continues on the Swiss side to Zermatt. An area where the snow is the setting of sport, holidays and fun. The tourism vocation of Breuil-Cervinia Valtournenche had it’s beginning more than two hundred years ago. Excursionists and academics were the pioneers of a tourism that united sport, scientific study and intellectual exchange. In 1936, a new Breuil-Cervinia was created. The construction of the first cable car was a cutting-edge work of engineering excellence. The Hotel Gran Baita situated at the foot of the slopes, with the cable car departure station annexed to it, anticipates by over half a century the concept of an integral complex for skiing. Breuil-Cervinia became the Queen of the snow. From sport to cinema, politics and commerce, those who count meet here. Innovation, in Breuil-Cervinia Valtournenche, is the key word. New ways to practice sport, new ways to enjoy a holiday, new services to allow more free time. The technology is not limited to the rapid lift systems, but also to the territorial fibre optic network that allows the information to be transmitted in real time. Time and space dimensions have changed thanks to the e-skipass, to the keycard and to the hotel reservation system via the internet. 350 thousands web navigators every month visiting the site to check out the webcams, weather reports, lift status and snow conditions. In Breuil-Cervinia Valtournenche, collaboration between the operators in the area guarantees guests quality and state of the art solutions.

The way leading to the Cryptoporticus is located in the garden on John XXIII square. It is a monumental building marking a sacred area for cult. It is a basement building with a series of windows. It was horseshoe-shaped and is formed by two parallel tunnels with barrel vaults, supported by sturdy pillars. The Cryptoporticus dates back to the Augustan age: it served mainly as a supporting structure of the land level that in that part of the city formed a slight slope from North to South, therefore creating a gap between the sacred area and the adjacent legal area. The colonnade above him served as a cornice for the two temples that stood side by side on a single podium, which could be reached by a staircase. The long east side of the Eastern Temple is well-preserved, and it can be seen nowadays, under the archdeaconry building. The Cryptoporticus therefore formed a covered walkway surrounding the sacred buildings. Its galleries represented an extension of the Forum colonnade, whose main function was to protect from rain and snow in winter and from sun in summer. During the third and fourth centuries, it probably turned to be used for goods storage.

The Aostan Roman Theatre stands out for its straight southern facade measuring 22 meters in height. Its majesty is punctuated by a series of buttresses and arches and is lightened by three orders of windows with different width. The masonry is characterized by large rectangular blocks of conglomerate and of local limestone. This suggestive part was originally longer than 60 m. The east and west sides were about 38 m long. The cavea is easily recognisable, as a semicircular structure where the public sat. Only the last six steps remain visible, in addition to the two, lower and wider, where the most important people used to sit. The radial substructures on which laid the rest of the terraces are still in their original place. The stage was located in front of the cavea, of which only the foundations are still visible. Small rooms behind served as dressing rooms for the actors, while the sides of the stage were used as deposits for equipment. The entire structure was then completed by arcades that stood against the perimeter wall on the shorter sides. The theatre was not built at the same time when the city was founded (25 BC), but rather a few decades later, in the Julio-Claudian era, as some previous buildings were found in this very area.