Heritage: Champdepraz

The rural buildings are made of local material (stone and wood) and faithfully reproduce the models popular in other lower valley towns. The rural homes are either “separated” (several separate buildings intended for different uses) or “concentrated” in a single building which includes the home, “lo pejo”, the stables, “l’htabio”, and the hay loft, “lo payi”. You can also find: “grisse”, small stone buildings used to dry chestnuts, “reucard” sheaf granary made of squared larch tree trunks and “lo dzerbi” sheaf store open on three sides overlooking the threshing barn.

Located in Chevrère, in the village of Covarey, the Mont Avic Regional Park visitors centre includes:

- an information point where you can watch films and admire pictures of the park on the large video wall, receive detailed information and publications on Mont Avic and the entire protected alpine area network and consult nature publications;

- a nature museum that describes the Park’s rocky environments, wetlands and forests, involving visitors with interactive systems;

-a multipurpose room where educational activities, films, meetings and temporary exhibits are held;

- a model in 1:5000 scale, located on the lawn, that faithfully reproduces the park and its surroundings.

Brochures and pamphlets are available in the outdoor distributor even when the information point is closed.

Inside the Centre the map of Mont Avic Park scaled at 1:25,000 can be purchased for 5,00 €; it includes useful information for hikers - in Italian, French and English – and two simplified cartographic inserts.

Another reliable guide to the routes, refuges and refreshment points of the Park is the Mont Avic Park APP, which can be downloaded for free both for iPhone and Android. It can also be used in offline mode, it therefore also works where there is no signal.

This very ancient chapel is located within the hamlet of Chevrère. Prior to the promotion of the territory of Champdepraz to a parish, it was part of the parish of Saint-Germain.

The parish is situated in the chief town and dates back to the end of the seventeenth century. The altar is the work of a Valsesian sculptor from the 18th century, it was damaged in 1886 by a fire and then immediately restored by a Valsesian sculptor, Giovanni Guale and the engraver from Verrès J-B Dallou. The two side altars were built in 1858 by the sculptor Carlo Del Ponte.

The great rock that bears the name of Frid is tied to the memory of a young shepherd from Champdepraz that loved and was loved by a fairy. Every day they would meet near that rock. The other fairies, envious of her happiness, decided to take her beloved away from her. Without being noticed they cut a piece of cloth from her dress so that her goat hooves would show whenever she would sit down. Horrified, Frid ran faraway, deaf to all cries, whilst the unhappy fairy, filled with despair, cried and struck her fists against the rock. It was then that Frid’s rock broke in two, crying out in pain. For a long time the fairy waited by the rock for her young shepherd to return, wasting away in her grief until disappearing into a cloud: blown by the wind, still today she continues the useless search for her beloved, lightly floating on the banks of the lake. Around Sé-Frid, where long ago there were emerald green prairies, the ground is now dry and brittle.