La Palud, 3 km far from the centre of Courmayeur, is the last village before entering the Mont Blanc tunnel to get to France.

Mont Blanc cableway is only a short way away and offers all year long the chance to live a day at high altitude. In summer, the crossing of the glaciers is a journey allowing you to get to Chamonix, along the way you will take 6 aerial cableways. At the first station, Pavillon du Mont Frety, there is the “Saussurea” botanic garden boasting a great collection of alpine plants from all over the world.

In winter, the off-the-slopes skiing in Courmayeur’s alpine guides company, with the slopes of Toula and Vallée Blanche, plays a leading role.

Enjoying an exceptional view of the Mont Blanc chain, the ski area of the Courayeur Mont Blanc Funivie offers 100 km. of piste. For whoever enjoys ski or snowboard a variety of descents through forests and slopes facing the sun of Chécrouit and Val Vény. For those who love free ride, in the highest parts of the ski area, you can reach fabulous off piste routes with views of Mont Blanc.

The nearby Val Vény cable car, in 800 meters, allows to reach all the ski area.

 

Val Ferret valley is a real paradise: in winter is the long-distance runners’ destination, but by the skiers one can walk along different tracks or venture with snowshoes through the woods up to the alpine refuges. During the other seasons, many other activities are feasible: golf, fishing, mountain biking, trekking or simply relaxing in the calmness of the mountain.

 

Nature walks, in front of the Chain, with landscapes always different from the alpine lakes to the glaciers, even for the less experts, are the ideal way to spend an active and healthy holiday. The Mont Blanc tour is instead reserved to those who have trained legs: is a route on foot around the Mont Blanc, across Italy, Switzerland and France, to have a 360° vision of it.

 

Courmayeur offers many amusements during the year: shopping in its refined Via Roma, a well equipped sports centre with tennis courts, ice skating, curling, climbing wall and numerous events such as “Noir in Festival” (Black Movies Festival) in December, the Celtic fair in July and many important sports rendezvous.

 

The mountain Consortium of Valdigne suggests further alternatives and every commune has its own peculiarities.

In Pré Saint Didier you can find its renewed Thermal Baths, celebrated from ancient times for the relaxing properties of its waters; the braves can experience the emotion of an adventure park with flights in the woods using a pulley system or the rafting along the Dora Baltea river.

La Thuile has a very big ski area, between Italy and France, rapidly reachable by car or free shuttle from Courmayeur.

Buying the “Ski pass Valle d’Aosta” you can ski in all the region ski resorts and visit all the castles, the Fort of Bard and go skating in all ice houses and swimming in the public swimming pools.

Morgex and La Salle complete the offer with their oenogastronomical proposals as the highest wine in Europe, the wellknown “Vin Blanc de Morgex et La Salle”, produced with vines up to 1000 meters altitude, and whose cellars can be visited.

The production of Fontina cheese is also very important, in Pré Saint Didier you can visit the storehouse for the maturing and conservation of fontina, a blockhouse dating back to the war period with its caves where thousands of whole cheeses lie.

 

The little size of our region enables to reach during the day the chosen destinations and to return before evening, avoiding so to change hotel accomodation continually.

The excursions in the different lateral valleys, each of them particularly characterized, from the renowned stations to the smaller mountain villages, enable you to know shortly Aosta Valley in its more common aspects.

You can visit the archaeological sites and the Roman ruins of Aosta, the medieval castles scattered in all the valley, the renowned Fort of Bard and its Mountain Museum. Of great historical importance, the alpine passes of the Grande and Piccolo San Bernardo that have been in centuries the only links to Europe: the Via Francigena, Napoleon’s troops and other armies at the conquest of Italy had only these accesses and exclusively during summer periods.

The excursions in the ancient National Park of Gran Paradiso and in the more recent and less famous Natural Park of Mont Avic, with their well equipped visitors centres, allow the keens on nature to observe intact, pure and protected  environments, happy oasis for the alpine flora and fauna.

To let the guests know the customs and manners of a people extremely bound to his region, several interesting events linked to the rural traditions are arranged, such as the millenary Saint Ours’ fair (30th and 31st January), the different “Batailles des Reines”, i.e. bloodless battles among the queen cows of various cowsheds, the “Desarpa” or the descent of the cattle from the mountain pastures at the end of summer, the festivals of the typical products: from the “Lard of Arnad” to the “Jambon (ham) of Bosses”, from the mountain honey to the apples of the Dora Valley.

 

Finally, being a border region, France and Switwerland are reachable shortly to make excursions and visit transalpine countries and cities.

 

For further information we are at your disposal with our knowledge and explanatory material to address you at our best during your stay.