In 1351 Domenico and Gottofredo di Vallaise robbed a wealthy merchant of Ivrea, Pietro di Stria, kidnapped him and held him prisoner up here while demanding a ransom from his family. They went unpunished: the castle of Suzey lay on the edge of the Vallaise barons' jurisdiction, and the young nobles who stayed here did not hold back.
What to see
Today it is a complete ruin above the hamlet of Ivéry, on a rocky spur at the border with Perloz. It was of the primitive Valdostan castle type: a tower, now destroyed, which recent studies describe as circular in section and five metres across, perhaps twelfth or thirteenth century, enclosed by irregular walls fitted to the ground. Against the north side stood the dwelling, with walls eighty centimetres thick and probably a century younger: a pitched roof, crenellation, a single room with arrow slits on the ground floor and one with windows and mullioned openings on the first, plus an attic room lit through the gables. The worked stone archivolt of the entrance survives and, higher up, a mullioned window that has lost its colonnette.
Visiting
The promontory is popular with walkers and is protected by the Holay pond nature reserve, created for the floristic interest of the area. The walls have partly collapsed and are choked by vegetation: you look, you do not visit.
Our editors' tip
Come for the walk rather than the castle, and fold the pond into it: half an hour gives you a medieval ruin and a wetland that counts as a rarity in the Aosta Valley.