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.

No skiing in Champoluc, part 1

Posted: Mar 23, 2015
Categories: Blog
Comments: 0

When you are in Champoluc for one week, and you do not only want to ski, what could you do? I have a job mate at our office, and she says: skiing do many people, so I don’t need to.

Champoluc Hotel Castor

There is a point in this indeed. She is in Champoluc one week in early March, and she enjoys. How can she survive in this environment, which is so incredibly dedicated to skiing as Champoluc in wintertime? What else could possibly be done here?

Champoluc on the slope

Gourmet, some pastries and aperitivo before dinner

Well first of all you can go around the village, a sunny day, looking like you are occupied taking pictures of the people hanging around and of the cozy village, with the goal of taking your lunch at the Atelier Gourmand or another of the restaurants on the main street.

Champoluc restaurants and food

After that you can have a coffee and a pastry in the pasticceria down the road after the main square. And wait there for the time to take an aperitivo at the nearby Café du Centre, where they also have internet, and where they show the soccer games of the Italian and the main international leagues. This only will take you more than one day to accomplish, if you don’t want to miss your dinner at one of the fabulous restaurants of the valley: the mythical La Grange in Frachey, above all, but also Le Sapin near the lift station, or the easier Pizzeria Churen.

Champoluc restaurant on slope

If you then have a ticket to get up to the first station of the lift in Crest, you have at least two other gourmet restaurants, the Frantze and the Aroula, each 15 minutes walk from the lift, or you could also combine some sport with this and take a snowshoeing hike to the fish restaurant in the middle of the Ostafa slope: the Baita Alpina (Alpine baita which serves fresh Genovese fish meals each Friday). Check their Facebook side

About Snowshoes

Why do you need snowshoes instead of just using your boots to hike on the trails wintertime?

Champolus snowshoes trip

When you start walking up one of many trails in the woods around Champoluc, it seems unnecessary; the snow is compact on the trail and the hike seems short and easy. But then, after a short while, you realize that the trail is going straight uphill and that you take two steps ahead and one back. The snowshoes have tags and crampons, which give them a perfect grip on your way up. Even more important are these things under your boots when you walk downhill. Without snowshoes, it would mean sliding down at a dangerous pace.

Champoluc snowshoes trails

Champoluc has some 5-8 different trails particularly marked for snowshoeing. They have a red sign at the start, and they are also classified by difficulty and time of duration to reach the top or the goal.

Champoluc snowshoes trails

There are some trails going to small medieval villages as Mascognaz, with its beautiful Hotellerie de Mascognaz, where you could try their restaurant and SPA, after your hike. Some are on plane terrain as the Ru Cortot, at 2000 meters all the way following the ancient water channel that the old inhabitants of the valley built to make fields irrigation possible with rational means. It starts in Barmasc, above Antagnod and its lift system, and ends after around 10 kilometers, above Saint Jacques. Perfect if someone can drive you to Barmasc and then you can take the skibus back to Champoluc.

Champoluc snowshoes trails

There is one trail I am very happy for. It is the one going from Saint Jacques, at the end of the road, to Pian di Verra, a plateau with the most splendid glaciers view one can imagine at 2000 m. Take your picnic with you to one of the stone houses in fields or why not going on to Rifugio Ferraro, in the Walser village of Resy, where you can have a delicious polenta dei vecchi (the oldest polenta with potatoes and polenta and cheese and butter) with prayer flags above your head and pictures of the Himalayas around you that were taken by the owner Fausta during his many travels to the big mountains.

Praying flags in Rifuggio Ferraro

Champoluc - view over the hill

Champoluc snowshoes trails

 

Print
Tags:

x
  • CONTACT US
    Please, write to us and ask us your questions, and we will get back to you.

    CONTACT US