It is the smallest region in Italy and also the least populous, and the only one entirely mountainous: 74 comuni, a single province, and around them the highest mountains in Europe — Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, Monte Rosa, Gran Paradiso. Around the last of these, in 1922, Italy's first national park was born. The Aosta Valley has existed as a region since 1946, when the province of Aosta was abolished, and French here is not a courtesy: it is a co-official language, alongside Italian. Its borders are with Switzerland to the north, France to the west and, in Italy, with Piedmont alone.
The valley has always been a corridor towards the Alpine passes, and the castles say so: Fénis and Issogne, the fort of Bard that plugs its entrance like a stopper. Today people come up in winter to ski at Courmayeur and Cervinia, in summer for the paths of the Gran Paradiso, where ibex graze at close range. The capital, Aosta, is the only comune in the region with more than ten thousand inhabitants: the second, Châtillon, does not reach five thousand.
The places worth the trip on their own, picked by our editors.
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Our editors' ranking: the area's most important places, drawn from the individual town guides. See the national rankings →
1 🎈 Unique experiences Skyway Monte Bianco 📍 Courmayeur Cabins that rotate as they rise to 3,466 metres on the Italian side of Mont Blanc. 
2 🏰 Castles & palaces Bard Fortress 📍 Bard Rebuilt in the 19th century, this imposing Savoy fortress is a masterpiece of military engineering in the Aosta Valley. 
3 🏰 Castles & palaces Fénis Castle 📍 Fénis A 14th-century pentagonal castle famous for its double crenellated walls and the frescoed inner courtyard. Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
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📅 Every year, on 6 November
Saint-Rhémy-en-Bosses celebrates Saint Leonard of Noblac on 6 November; the 19th-century church dedicated to him, in the hamlet of Saint-Léonard, stands beside the 14th-15th century castle of Bosses.
📅 Every year, on 11 November
Pontey celebrates its patron Saint Martin on 11 November; the other important observance in the town is Carnival, during which the Ferpafrapa effigy is burned, while the church dedicated to him already depended on the bishopric of Aosta in the 12th century.
📅 Every year, on 11 November
On 11 November Arnad celebrates Saint Martin; on the last weekend of August, instead, comes the Féhta dou lar, the Lard d'Arnad festival.
📅 Every year, on 11 November
Ayas celebrates Saint Martin of Tours on 11 November; his church, in the hamlet of Antagnod, with its distinctive bulb-shaped bell tower overlooking Piazza François-Marie Dandrès, was enlarged precisely at this parish priest's wish and houses frescoes and works of sacred art inside.
