Marta's Monterosa Blog

I am passionate about the Alps. They are my heart's home and the place where I would like to spend the last day of my life. I have been a tourist in the village of Champoluc in the Italian Monterosa for all my life and worked as a tourist operator in this area since more than 15 years.

I believe in respect for the special environment of this place that you can find only here. We all gain by enjoying its beauty, while trying to make a minimum impact at the same time. Leave it for our children in the future!

I believe in respect for people who live here with their traditions and culture, language, and work, their genuine products and delicious wines. They open their homes for us, tourists and meet us as their guests, if we are able to open our hearts for them. I have a friend who is a hotel owner and he says that when stressed people from the city come to his place, he tells them to sit down and take a drink before they even begin to worry if they have a room. Perhaps, we can bring a little of their kindness and calmness with us on our way back to the city.

My philosophy is to give back a little of what the mountains and the people from this place have given to me and to my family through my work, to communicate my philosophy and my passion to those who follow me on the blog, and in my trips as a tour operator.

If you would like to visit Champoluc, Gressoney, Alagna or other villages in the Aosta Valley, trek or ski in the Monterosa, discover Sardinia or other places we offer, contact us.

Courmayeur - back again

Posted: Jan 29, 2016
Categories: Blog
Comments: 0

This weekend it is Courmayeur where my guests from a financial company in Stockholm are headed for their annual meeting in the Alps. Despite the fact that my mother and father met there, and that my grandparents are buried in the cemetery of the village, I have not been spending so much time there the last couple of decades.


Our friends like the sun, Courmayeur


Somehow there is a kind of people who go to Monterosa for skiing and some other who go to Courmayeur, at least if you are Italian as I am. However, I took my first ski lessons by mythical Maestro Cipolla there when I was 3 and my mother was on top of the Grand Jorasses when she was 18… I like Courmayeur, it is only I feel a little different there.


Morning Dent de Geant


The town is chic, and the people who once upon a time were hard mountain foxes are now trying to elevate the tourist service at a five star international level. And it is difficult! Some of the hotels are still ruled by people from town, and I chose one of the most typical, still in the hands of the same family since 3 generations: hotel Berthod. And we still found 3 generations on place: Giulia at the reception, her mother in the kitchen, uncle Alessio who fix all, and her grand mother ruling everyone. This is pretty authentic, we think. Genuine tourism.


Choose your way, Mont Blanc, 4809m


Via Roma is the shopping paradise of the Italian Alps, together with Cortinas main square perhaps. But the shops are closed on Wednesday and many of them open only on weekends, for the people coming from Milan and Torino. Behind Moncler and Gucci, there are the shops that have always been here, and where the Italians really go: Guichardaz is probably the best, and the book store, Buona Stampa, with the beautiful sign that says you will not understand why they have always open, before you get inside – a great passion for books, they have!

Restaurants on the slopes, Courmayeur


The ski system has been blessed by pretty nice snowfall, the best in Italy this year, and they are glad about that, in Courmayeur! The slopes are not crowded on a Thursday afternoon and I take my long run from the top of the Col Checrouit to the bottom. The Mont Blanc lift is brand new, Sky way its selling name, but many other lifts here are from the past, as Youla lift, which still has an operator inside to be able to manually close the door of the gondola!


Restaurant Dandelion La Palud, Courmayeur


The restaurants down town Courmayeur are difficult: food medium, price stellar, to be in a mountain resort in Italy anyway!


There is a good pizza at the La Terrazza, and we went there for lunch. But I had to find out some really good and genuine place for dinner, that could suit the refined taste of the Swedish cultivated city people I was guiding, and this was a strange task. Chiecco’s owner Anna told us to try the new restaurant at La Palud, the end of the road with only the Mont Blanc above, named Dandelion. Arianna has a few courses on the menu of her restaurant, delicious and revisited rustic style, exactly as I wished. Cotechino with mustard and crispy veal side with vegetable in the veal’s real “sugo” was great! Next evening it was time to visit a classic, with typical Aosta Valley food as polenta, meat and mushrooms, and we ended up at Baita Ermitage, really outside the spectacular Via Roma. Happy we did!


Tag the lift, Checrouit


The last run Courmayeur

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