Today I got up early and drove my powerful Cinquecento for an hour and a half to reach the valley station of the Skyway to Monte Bianco. Monte Bianco and Mont Blanc are the same mountain, which sits at the border of Italy and France and at 4,806 m is the highest point in the Alps. On the Italian side the Skyway to Monte Bianco starts from the town of Courmayeur. I got there bright and earliy, before the regular tourists but at the time when the real alpinists were getting ready to start their mountains day(s). Some had huge backpacks that suggested they were planning to camp on the mountain, but others were loaded with rock-climbing equipment that suggested they were going to do a route for the day. I was in awe looking at these young men and women who were getting ready to trudge through the snow to one of the walls or "teeth" that I could see on the skyline.
The Skyway has two stages. The first one is to The Pavillion (2,173 m), and from there you go to Pointe Helbronner (3,462 m), where the alpinists take off to climb Mont Blanc itself, or so many of the other points around them, such as the Tooth of the Giant, or Mont Maudit. I confess I felt like an amateur with no lofty goal in mind, as I trudged up the metal staircase to the observation deck. The wind was furious there, and without gloves the fingers started hurting in a few minutes.
But the view was glorious. Monte Bianco is a big granite cupola that ballooned and stretched the surrounding gneisses as if they were fingers trying to hold back the rising magma. It very much reminded me of Torres del Payne in southern Chile. This is only the beginning, however, because peak after peak define an arête (a ridge with very sharp slopes) that keeps going for kilometers before joining with others to create the endless sequence of peaks that are so distinctive of the Alps. Toward the French side the glaciers merge to form the Mer de Glaçe that extends all the way to Chamonix. There are some smaller glaciers on the Italian side, but sadly they have been retreating and now look like piles of rubble.
Pointe Helbronner is named after Paul Helbronner, the French surveyor who did a lot of the pioneer work surveying the Alps. But he was not only a great surveyor; he was also a gifted landscape artist who drew fabulous ink landscapes of the alpine landscapes, and using water colors conveyed his own sense of wonder about the mountains he had made his life work. Use Google Images to search for "Paul Helbronner drawings Alps" and you will be able to enjoy this masterpieces yourself.
On the way back to the middle station, The Pavillion, I ventured into the great outdoors to look at the rocks and the collection of alpine plants and flowers they have in an open-air garden. I saw many pieces of granite with large feldspar crystals and pegmatite veins, quartz-feldspathic gneisses, and an odd pile of travertine limestones that they must have transported there to host plants that thrive in alkaline carbonate soils.
On the last half of the decent I saw bedded sandstones and maybe limestones, which appear to be in fault contact with the metamorphic and igneous intrusive rocks. I don't envy the geologists that have to map and make sense of these beautiful mountains.
Still electrified from my peek at the high mountains I took a side road and "visited" the Parco Nazionale Gran Paradiso. Of course my "visit" was just a drive across the middle of this very large national park, but what I saw very much reminded me of driving up to Sonora Pass in the Sierra Nevada. The central axis of the park is a gorgeous valley covered with pine trees, with a skyline of lofty mountains formed mostly by metamorphic rocks (schists and gneisses). It is the perfect place to spend a week camping and fishing on the many creeks and waterfalls.
Before heading back home I went visit the city of Aosta, which Giulia had recommended to me. I arrived there are 2 pm and as soon as I parked the car I was overwhelmed by the oppressive heat. Although Aosta is at the end of the valley that goes all the way up to Monte Rosa, it is actually very low in the valley and almost in the plain of the Po River. For a moment I thought to pass on Aosta, but I was here and might as well soldier through it. I am glad I did because it is a pretty city with a fascinating history.
The place has been occupied since the Neolithic, and has an abundance of relics from its prehistory, Roman times, early Christianism, and Middle Ages. Naturally there is a lot to see and try to soak in (and all under oppressive heat). Right away you come in contact with Roman remains. In fact, the city derives its modern name from its Roman name, Augusta Pretoria. In Roman times it was one of the important nodes of the network that connected the Roman posts across the Alps. So of course Aosta has a couple of monumental gates, a well-preserved Roman Theater, a central ceremonial area that today you can only see below ground level in the excavations made to expose the arcades that limited the central plaza. There was also a Forum, but I didn't see any evidence for it.
The city was occupied during the first centuries of Christianism, when bishops played a very important role in spreading the Good Word, and some of the old, old churches have yielded important artifacts from the early times of the church.
I had been a brave little tourist, trying to see everything, but hot and hungry I was ready to give up. Then again, the Megalithic museum had been recommended to me and I decided to drive there and, if I could find a parking spot, give it a quick look. I did find a spot, and thanks to that I didn't miss the best part of Aosta. Turns out that a church was being built, Saint-Martin-de-Corléans, and the excavations discovered a major Neolithic ceremonial area. Fortunately. money was found to build a museum around the site, which has a large number of megalithic monuments (dolmens and menhirs), neolithic burials and artifacts, and horizons that document the transition to the Roman area. It is a fabulous museum worth facing the heat on Aosta.
At the Megalithic Museum of Aosta, the lowest stratum, dated at 4,000 BC, is formed by soil that had been plowed in long narrow furrows. It was a job done with a simple plow that does not turn the soil as the Roman carruca plow does. Footprints of small oxen and a man show that bovines had already been domesticated as beasts of work.
The next stratum, also ca. 4,000 BC, shows the planting of poles in distinctive alignments not to delimit spaces, but presumably for ceremonial purposes. The poles are long gone, but the excavations done to plant them on the ground included offerings of grain and meal.
By 2,900 BC the poles seemed arranged in such a way as to define an open sanctuary, and between 2,900 and 2,500 BC megalithic stones with ornamentation (menhirs) were being set across the ceremonial area. Some include anthropomorphic designs depicting clothing and weapons.
Between 2,700 and 1,600 BC the site assumes a funerary function, and dolmens and stele are placed to mark some of the burials (the stele were recycled all the way into Roman times). Lots of skulls have been recovered, some of which show evidence of trepanation and survival of those operated by the healing bone edges.
The site continued to be used for agriculture into the Bronze age (2,000 to 1,000 BC), and during the Iron age (1,000 BC to 100 AD), as demonstrated by grave goods. It is at this time that the Romans sweep in, starting with residences and workshops, and the development of a Necropolis and the public buildings such as the twin temples and other civil architecture in Augusta Praetoria between 50 and 400 AD.
During the early Medieval period between 400 and 1176 AD the main east-west Roman road was raised and paved, and the Church of Saint Martin was built to hold the tombs of the bishops of the early Christian church.
I should add that on top of its very rich history Aosta has a very charming old town, with Medieval buildings creating an attractive labyrinth of narrow streets and courtyards, where the deep shade is very welcome in the heat of the day.
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