This castle is two buildings in one. In the fourteenth century the local lords built a square block with four round battlemented towers at the corners, for defence; in the eighteenth century their descendants, who needed a comfortable residence and not a fortress, built a baroque palace around it, leaving the towers in view. The result reads at a glance.
What to see
From below you see the four medieval stone towers rising at the corners of an eighteenth-century body with loggias, regular windows and pale plaster. It is an avowed superimposition: whoever did the work did not hide the old castle, they took it in and turned it into an ornament.
Inside, the route shows the frescoed rooms, the fireplaces, the service quarters and the surviving medieval parts. The castle was restored over many years and became visitable again in 2022, with a display explaining the building phases. Around it are the terraced vineyards of the valley, which come right up to the walls.
Visiting
The castle is at Aymavilles, fifteen minutes by car from Aosta along the road to Cogne; paid ticket, with a weekly closing day and seasonal hours. An hour and a half.
Our editors' tip
Stop on the road before you arrive and look at the castle from a distance, with the vineyards in front: from there you see that the towers and the palace belong to two ages and two mentalities, and that somebody decided to keep them together instead of choosing. In the Aosta valley it is a unique case.