The castles of the Aosta valley are nearly all square, with a keep in the middle and walls around it. Introd's is not: in the fifteenth century it was rebuilt on a rounded, almost oval plan, and there is no other like it in the valley. Born in the twelfth century as a simple tower, it appears in documents in 1244 and was enlarged into a real fortress in 1260 by the local lords.
What to see
From outside you read the sequence clearly: the old core and then the later shell, which cuts off the corners and makes the walls curve. Around it lies the shelf at the mouth of the two valleys, Rhêmes and Valsavarenche, which climb towards the Gran Paradiso: the castle stands exactly where both could be controlled.
Not far off are the rural buildings of wood and stone typical of the valley, the granaries and the fortified houses, which tell the other half of the story: not the lords but the farmers who worked these slopes. Introd is also the commune where some popes spent their summer holidays, in a house among the woods above the village.
Visiting
The castle is at Plan d'Introd, a kilometre from the village centre, about twenty minutes by car from Aosta; it is visited on guided tours in season, usually in summer, and the openings change from year to year: check before going up. Three quarters of an hour.
Our editors' tip
Walk right round the castle from outside, keeping to the grass: it is the only way to see the curved plan, which you cannot perceive from within. Then look up towards the two valleys: half an hour by car from here you are inside the Gran Paradiso park, and this castle is the guardhouse of that entrance.