Bardonecchia, Oulx and Sauxe d'Oulx: on the streets of history

It used to be the most famous passage through the Alps connecting Italy and France. Today it is a jewel of marvellous natural parks, spread with prestigious abbeys. The High Valley where lay its major holiday and ski resorts (Bardonecchia, Oulx and Sauxe d'Oulx) will host the Winter Olympic Games in 2006.

Do you want to discover the places where the Winter Olympic Games will occur in 2006? The marvellous Susa Valley, going along the course of Dora Riparia, wedges itself in the French Provence. This is a land rich in culture and history, that offers interesting artistical and cultural itineraries but also boasts some tourist pearls as Bardonecchia, Oulx and Sauxe d'Oulx where the Winter Olympic Games will take place in a few years. In the centuries this has been the main communication way between France and Italy.

Search last minute: asia travel, airline tickets, cheap airline tickets

Our itinerary starts in Torino, head city of the province and of Piedmont. There we take the Moncenisio high way that will lead us to the entrance of the valley filling our eyes with the Alpine relieves. First stop in Rivoli: its centre dominates the plains and the morainal hills of Monferrato. Above raises the Rivoli castle, delights place of the Savoy court just as the Turinese Valentino castle.

From Rivoli we enter the low part of the valley and after about ten kilometers on the street towards Avigliana, we reach Rosta, first stop of a tour in the abbeys of the Susa Valley. Here, on a rock, there is the Sant'Antonio di Ranverso abbey, founded in 1188 along the former France street by Umberto III of Savoy to be an adoration and a healing place. It took its name after Sant'Antonio Abate and from the "Rivus Inversus" canal set North of the morenial ridges. The abbey complex, always going through many works and enlargments, has deeply changed today. It is constitued by the church with nave and two aisles, by the sacristy which was completely painted by Giacomo Jacquerio, by the Gothic XIV century bell tower, by the cloister, by the hospital, by the dairy-farms and the monastry. In 1776 its property passed on to the Mauritian Order and they are still taking care of its conservation and restoration.

Search last minute: travel advice, travel india, british tourist authority

Bardonecchia, surrounded by green woods, is set at the confluence of four valleys: Mélezet, Rho, Frejus and Rochemolles. It is among the best equiped and renowned resorts of the High Valley, with eccellent lifts to the ski slopes of Pian del Sole-Colomion, Mélezet-Selletta and Jafferau, all connected to each other. The village has concentrated the main tourist and hotel structures in the lower part (Borgo Nuovo - New village), while in the more quite and evocative higher part extends the Old Village (Borgo Vecchio) with the typical Alpine houses of these valleys. Here you may visit the church of S. Ippolito, with a baptismal font of 1573 and the wooden choir which was carved and painted in the XV century. Beside it there is a small Town Museum (tel. ++39/0122/999350) where handicrafts, fornitures, distaffs and wool-winders are exhibited. During the next Winter Olympic Games Bardonecchia will host the contests of snow-board and the combined slaloms of alpine ski.

Vacanze in montagna a Bardonecchia

---