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.

Posted: Dec 25, 2010

The last miles on the Autobahn and our arrival in Champoluc

Ahh, after a good nights sleep (for everyone except Pascal) in the cabin of the ferry, we are finally in Germany.

But our happiness doesn't last very long, after just a few kilometers we were met by a long line.

We were stuck in this first line for at least 40 minutes and after the first one there was the next one. Of course after that one, an other and so on.

So our view for today was pretty much like this…

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Posted: Dec 6, 2010

Beauty comes from within – Bellvue, a genuine hotel in Cogne, Aosta Valley

I have seen pretty many hotels in my days as a travel consultant, especially hotels in the Alps.

But Hotel Bellvue, in the village of Cogne is the most beautiful I have ever seen. How comes?

Beauty is not a superficial identity of something, it is the soul of this something emanating on the outside. It could be that the soul is always beautiful, so something beautiful has a soul. A human being can hide her soul, and so can things owned by human beings, behind a surface. Many people and things seem to be beautiful on the surface, but they end beeing fake reproductions or products of plastic surgery, when you look a little closer.

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Posted: Nov 8, 2010

”For each small language that disappears, the world becomes a less free place”

says Maura Susanna, to introduce herself.

We sit in the dining room at La Torretta hotel, and sip a drink after a long day spent hiking in the special landscape of the mountains in fall. A little tired but also very relaxed; walking in the fog and woods, through the ancient villages of the Monterosa, is for me as good as honey. Today it is my birthday.

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Posted: Oct 30, 2010

Slow Holiday or holiday frustration

Paola and Nica are the spiritual and also very physical power behind hotel La Torretta in the Aosta Valley, and a lot more. They have restored Paola’s family possession into a beautiful house for resting your mind and your body, and they have funded a local organisation of hotel owners in the Aosta Valley, where the focus is on ”Slow”. Or as they declare in their programme: ” the most important thing is to stop in order to know places, spaces, silences, perfume, colours…” http://www.slowholiday.it/index.php/filosofia-eng.html

Except for the name of the club, ”Slow Holiday”, the ladies are really sparkling, and filled of energy and fresh enthusiasm. Probably a consequence of the application of this philosophy.

This is again coherent with some of the ideas behind the ”genuine tourism” that I am working for today. Thus La Torretta http://www.latorrettahotel.com/ is the hotel where I invite my guests during this October tour.

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Posted: Oct 22, 2010

Beginning of October in the Alps: Another tourism, a genuine one!

I was a little bit nervous because I had a group of guests from Sweden for three days, and I was going to proof that autumn in the Alps is a perfect time for tourism. But, would they really enjoy my beloved valleys and mountains as I hoped?

Well, if nothing else, at least the spectacle of the mountains with the colours of fall and the crazy blue sky, would be enough to highten their spirits, unless…

Unless…

the weather is thick with fog, and we do not even see a hint of the 4000m peaks that only I know are around us, behind the white courtains!

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