David Whitley discovers the French links of Italian alpine destinations such as Courmayeur, Montagnedoc and Valle d’Aosta.
Cross border cable cars
There can be few better ways of crossing a border than getting the series of cable cars across the Alps from the French ski resort of Chamonix to its Italian equivalent at Courmayeur. With Mont Blanc towering close by, it’s a proper I’m-the-king-of-the-world experience. Well, it is for those who don’t suffer from severe vertigo, anyway.
Duchy of Savoy
But the Alpine regions of Italy and France share more than just a pretty impressive mountain range. Whilst the Alps form a natural geographic boundary, the French and Italian sides haven’t always been separate. In fact, from 1046 to 1714, most of the region was part of the county (and then Duchy) of Savoy.
Under Savoy rule – first based in Chambéry and then Turin – something not quite French and not quite Italian emerged, the remnants of which can be seen today. Amongst these was a language – Occitan or Langue d’Oc – which is still spoken quite prominently in the Italian mountain valleys as well as in pockets across the South of France.
Valle d’Aosta and Montagnedoc
The Italian side of the Alps is broken up into two areas, the autonomous Valle d’Aosta in the north, and the Montagnedoc region of Piemonte further south. Valle d’Aosta is officially bilingual – French has protected status – while Italian rules in Montagnedoc, but only just.
Across both, the surnames and place names often become hybridised, with clearly French names given Italianised pronunciation and vice-versa. Meanwhile many – certainly in Montagnedoc – are eligible for dual citizenship. It used to be common practice for those in border towns to give birth in Briançon on the French side as it hosted the nearest hospital with suitable facilities.
Second World War
The Second World War did put up a bit of a barrier between the two sides – indeed much of the best defensive Alpine territory was awarded to France after the war, and some Italians found themselves suddenly living in France. However, that is mainly in the past.
Towns and villages are twinned, whilst many on the Italian side still celebrate the French Revolution and nip over the border for their (considerably cheaper) healthcare and dentistry work.
Freedom trees
Meanwhile, across the landscape, there are signs of when the area had even closer ties. In towns up and down the Upper Susa and Lower Susa valleys, there are what are known as ‘Freedom trees’. These were planted on the orders of the not-at-all egotistical Napoleon Bonaparte, who decided the area needed a permanent reminder of him passing through.
There are also striking similarities in the architecture – the churches between Claviere and Chiomonte have far more in common with those between Gap and Briançon than those elsewhere in Italy, for example.
Border forts
Meanwhile, many of the forts amassed along the border were originally intended to protect Italy from France – they were to protect Savoy from the Dauphiné. Both have since been merged into the Rhone-Alpes region of France. The most spectacular of the forts is the Fenestrelle Fort in the Chisone Valley – the largest fortified structure in Europe, and second only to the Great Wall of China in length.
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