🌋 Nature & views

Riserva naturale Marais

📍 La Salle, Aosta Valley · 44/100

In 2013 a council decision cancelled everything still to be done: the ecomuseum, the ponds, the teaching centre, the underwater observatory and even the toad tunnel, the underpass that would have taken amphibians safely across the road. What remains of the Marais reserve, established in 1992 between Morgex and La Salle, is the thing that matters: the wetland.

What to see

It is one of the few wetlands in the Aosta Valley, down on the valley floor at the entrance to the Valdigne. A research centre was built here in 2010 and granted to the Efisio Noussan regional museum of natural science; since 2015 that museum has had two homes, the display rooms in the castle of Saint-Pierre and the scientific work here.

Our editors' tip

You come for the birds and the amphibians, in spring, not for the view: this is flat ground, and Mont Blanc looks better from almost anywhere else in the valley. An hour is enough, binoculars included.

Things to do here: tours, tickets and experiences

Riserva naturale Marais

Bookable on GetYourGuide

Also in La Salle

Castello di Châtelard

The ruined castle a bishop of Aosta had built to bar the road coming down from the Little St Bernard.

📍 1.1 km

Torre di Derby

They call it a tower, but it is the church of Sant'Orso: the only historic building in Derby you can enter.

📍 1.2 km

Casaforte Bovet

Four floors, a spiral staircase in stone and wood, and a 250-year-old elder in the courtyard.

📍 1.7 km

Castello di Écours

Tradition says Innocent V was born here in 1224, though scholars do not confirm it.

📍 2.0 km

Nearby

The closest places worth seeing as the crow flies, even across province lines.

Pré-Saint-Didier Thermal Baths

Historic 19th-century thermal baths favored by the House of Savoy, set alongside the dramatic Verney river gorge.

📍 Pré-Saint-Didier · 7.8 km

Maison de Mosse

Runaz's strong-house on the Roman road, now library and sound archive.

📍 Avise · 7.3 km

Skyway Monte Bianco

Cabins that rotate as they rise to 3,466 metres on the Italian side of Mont Blanc.

📍 Courmayeur · 13 km