Explore Piemonte and Valle d’Aosta
For some of the area’s most beautiful mountains and valleys, make for the south, down to the Gran Paradiso National Park (w pngp.it; from Piemonte access is through the village of Ceresole Reale) – Italy’s first national park, spread around the valleys at the foot of 4061m-high Monte Gran Paradiso. The park’s three valleys – Cogne, Valsavarenche and Val di Rhêmes – are popular, but tourist development has been cautious and well organized. The hotels are good and the campsites not too vast. There are a few mountain rifugi and bivacchi (unoccupied shelters) between which run well-marked footpaths. Though it’s primarily a summer resort for walkers, the cross-country skiing is also good, and every winter a 45km Gran Paradiso trek is organized at Cogne (contact the tourist office in Cogne for details). The starting-point for the ascent of Gran Paradiso itself is Pont in the Valsavarenche, while Cogne gives access to the Alta Via 2, a long, high-level mountain trail.
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Wildlife in Gran Paradiso National Park
Wildlife in Gran Paradiso National Park
Gran Paradiso National Park owes its foundation to King Vittorio Emanuele II, who donated his extensive hunting park to the state in 1922, ensuring that the population of ibex that he and his hunters had managed to reduce to near extinction, would after all survive. There are now around 3500 ibex here and about 6000 chamois, living most of the year above the tree line but descending to the valleys in winter and spring. The most dramatic sightings are during the mating season in November and December, when you may see pairs of males fighting it out for possession of a female. You might also spy golden eagles nesting, and there are a number of rare alpine flowers, most of which can be seen in the botanical garden in the Val di Cogne.
