They called it the bishop's castle: for centuries the bishops of Aosta spent their summers here, among the woods, pastures and lands they owned all around. It appears in the documents for the first time in 1305, as domus episcopalis apud Chalvenzo.
What to see
Little of the medieval castle is left: a stretch of curtain wall and, to the north-west, the remains of a small round turret of the fourteenth century, the only surviving sign of its defensive past. The rest was heavily reworked and plastered in 1971, turning it once and for all into housing. It stands near the parish church; in the same comune, between the main village and Pont-Suaz, the base of the Tornettaz survives, part of the network of signal towers in visual contact with the castles of the valley.
Visiting
It is private and cannot be visited: you recognise it from the road. Its most serious hour came with the plague of 1630, when the Conseil des Commis, the local government, met here to take the most important decisions. Bishop Arduce de Pont-Saint-Martin stayed more than once and disposed of it in his will the day before he died, in 1327. In 1868 the Italian state expropriated church property and the castle passed to local families, who used it as a farm.
Our editors' tip
It does not stand on its own as a destination: it sits along the road up to the hermitage of San Grato, and works as a two-minute stop before you gain height.