🏺 Archaeological sites

arco romano di Donnas

📍 Donnas, Aosta Valley · 36/100

Just outside the old village the via delle Gallie is still the Roman one: the consular road is cut into the rock above the Dora Baltea and is crowned by a stone arch some four metres thick. Beside it stands milestone number XXXVI, counting the miles from Augusta Praetoria, today's Aosta.

What to see

It is one of the most important and best preserved Roman remains in the Aosta Valley, and what strikes you is not so much the arch as the cutting: the rock was worked to carry the roadway above the river, and the result has held for two thousand years. The Valdostan stretch of the Via Francigena follows the same line today, arriving from Bard and continuing towards Pont-Saint-Martin.

Our editors' tip

It is a few minutes on foot from the centre, and you walk on the road rather than beside it: a different experience from looking at a fenced ruin. Low light is best, when the groove cut into the rock reads more clearly.

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