ALPENZU WALKGressoney-Saint-Jean, AO

If you try to close your eyes and imagine a small isolated village in the mountains, where the air and water are still pure and crystalline and everything still seems human-sized, then you are thinking of Alpenzu, where time seems to have stood stopped to allow ancient things to live a little longer among us.

ITINERARY

Alpenzu is a delightful cluster of old Walser houses, with a delightful retreat.

It starts from Gressoney St Jean, at the start of the path to Alpenzu Grande; the path is very wide, and rises rather steeply in the wood of centuries-old larches.

From Alpenzu, we will take a path towards the East, and with Monte Rosa always in front, we will go along a long stretch with little gradient, uphill and downhill again, crossing meadows, woods, streams, flanking old wooden houses of typical origin agricultural, up to Alpenzu Piccolo, another delightful hamlet composed of a few grouped houses.

After these houses you go down on a wider path up to the paved road, where you cross the Lys stream on a small bridge after which you continue along a farm road up to the hamlet of Ecko di Sopra: from here you descend on the path under the houses and continue on the flat after the small church of Ecko di Sotto, always following the trail marker 14 or the red signs indicating Saint Jean; beyond the hamlets of Biela, Rong di Sopra and Rong di Sotto, from here we begin to descend following the yellow marks along the boundary wall to the north of a multi-storey building and arrive at a hairpin bend of the road, along the which, by cutting the curves for the path where possible, we arrive at another bridge on the Lys which finally brings us back to the parking lot of departure, about 200 m. downstream.

CONTENTS

Naturalistic aspects

The flora and fauna along the route will be illustrated according to the most interesting features, also from the  point of view of food.

Historical-architectural aspects

The economy of the rural villages of the past centuries, autarkic in their small rural economic reality, is well represented by the houses that fulfilled a multiple function, housing the farmers and livestock in the same building, with interesting and intelligent aspects of subdivision of the interior spaces, each functional for a specific purpose.

COSTS

Teacher 180 Euro per group up to 6 people, over Euro 10 each.

Lunch at the shelter (highly recommended for tasting local products): 16 Euri (a dish of polenta concia with the DOP cheese from Gressoney or Fontina DOP + the glass of Valle d'Aosta DOC Aosta Valley wine + 1 dessert).

Alternatively, a packed lunch

ACCESSIBILITY AND SERVICES

people in wheelchairs: NO

blind: YES

animals: YES on a leash

toilets: YES, free

photographs: YES

THE LESSON IS PERFORMED EVEN IN THE CASE OF RAIN AND "MALATEMPORA"

TRANSPORTS

http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom/Treni-Regionali/Valle-d%27Aosta

https://www.flixbus.it/orari-fermate-autobus/aosta

https://www.svap.it/it/31/linee-e-orari/

https://www.autobus.it/