Nature: La Thuile

The anthracite mining site took shape after the First World War on the slope just above La Thuile, between 1,470 and 1,740 meters above sea level, above the hamlets of Villaret, Buic, and Thovex, and downstream from the 18th-century fortress of Plan Praz. Numerous tunnels were dug on various levels, many of them sloping to follow the vein inside the mountain. The mining village was built in Arpy, on the Morgex slope.

La Thuile offers a series of trails through the woods, from short half-hour walks to longer routes lasting up to over 4 hours, along which it is possible to observe the signs of the tracks once used to transport the carts, the entrances to the tunnels and the ruins of the miners’ shelters.

The garden is at the Little Saint Bernard pass, between Savoie (France) and Val d’Aosta (Italy), 2,170 above sea level, around one kilometre from the border on French territory.

“Chanousia” owes its name to its founder, Abbot Pierre Chanoux, then Rector of the nearby Hospice of the Mauritian Order, who opened it in 1897. The gardens gained international fame and came to have more than 2,500 alpine species from all over the world. It was abandoned in 1940 during the war and for a long time after this, being on newly acquired French territory, it was impossible to rebuild it and most cultivated plants were suffocated by the spontaneous vegetation. In the mid 1970s, an internal association was created to run the gardens, thanks to the involvement of Société de la Flore Valdôtaine, Société d’Histoire Naturelle de la Savoie and several botanists. Reconstruction work began in 1976.

The vegetable species are found in an ecological context (limestone rock gardens, silica moraines, peat bogs, stream banks, etc.) corresponding to their needs, and the more recent collections are grouped together according to their geographical origin. The choice of species cultivated, mostly from alpine or snow plains, is determined by the harsh climatic conditions and the shortness of the vegetation period (3 months). Most plants in the gardens blossom between the end of July and mid September. Currently, there are approximately 1,000 species of alpine plants cultivated here. The building that houses the small museum with relics of Abbot Chanoux has recently been refurbished along with rooms for scholars of alpine botany.

The lake is located at 2,088 m of altitude between Becco dei Rousses, the promontory with the Little St. Bernard pass, and Mount Chaz Dura.

The panorama sweeps over dozens of surrounding summits. The view over the valley of La Thuile is magnificent.
Lake Verney, with its surface area of 20.30 ha, is one of the largest lakes in Aosta Valley, its hues ranging from green to blue.

On the meadows on the right, just beyond the buildings of the former Italian Customs, you can see the earliest testimonies of Roman presence on the Alpis Graia, as they called this hill. These are the remains of the oriental mansio, unearthed and restored at the end of the 1920s. The size of its perimeter walls help us to understand the extent of this rectangular building, made up of a series of rooms surrounding a central courtyard, linked via an arcade to the Roman Road to Gaul, which runs parallel to the current road on the right. The “mansio” acted as a store and a shelter for wayfarers and the military. Next to and outside of this, right on the edge of the current paved road, there is a small temple, the gallo-roman fanum, perhaps dedicated to a Celtic divinity, considering the Roman custom of subjecting local worship habits to the Empire.

A short distance away, a much more ancient ruin can be observed: the “cromlech”, a large circle of 46 stones planted in the ground at 4 metres distance one from the other, right on the border between Italy and France, marks pre-Roman presence of man in the area, although the exact period of its construction is still not ascertainable.

The building beyond the former French Customs, on the right side, dating back to the Roman era, is also linked to the ancient Road to Gaul and, like the oriental mansio, has an internal courtyard surrounded by rooms. Here the sacred element is nevertheless predominating over the common use: indeed, apart from the sacellum for worship, detached from the other rooms, the construction uncovered a silver bust of Jupiter Dolichenus and several votive plaques of thanksgiving, today stored in the Museum of Archaeology in Aosta.

Jupiter also gave its name to the hill throughout the Middle Ages. Because of the presence of the 4.5 metres high marble column in front of the sanctuary and called the “Column of Joux”, the pass was named “Mons Minoris Iovis” and the Saint Bernard Hospice has been mentioned in documents as “Hospitale Columne Jovis”. Today, the column acts as a pedestal for the statue of Saint Bernard, replacing the former one dedicated to Jupiter, which was demolished, according to the legend, by Saint Bernard himself, once he arrived on the pass, for dismantling the symbols of paganism.

The Hospice, founded in the 11th century from Saint Bernard, was repeatedly destroyed by wars and fires, but was always rebuilt. It was abandoned after Second World War due to the violent bombardments; since 1993 its reconstruction began. At present it hosts the International Tourist Information Office as well as the Museum on the history of the Pass, the Valdigne and the region of Savoy .