Prazzo

Prazzo, Prats in Occitan, lies on the left side of the Valle Maira and has no single centre: the main settlement is split between Prazzo Superiore, with the town hall, the school and most of the shops, and Prazzo Inferiore, with the parish church and a barracks that the Italian army and NATO use now and then for mountain training. The comune as it stands was assembled from above: in 1928 Ussolo and San Michele Prazzo, until then separate comuni, were joined to it.

Ussolo is the hamlet that has kept the most of its medieval look, with covered passageways, rough stone walls and roofs of stone slabs; its parish church of Santo Stefano reuses capitals and têtes coupées from an older building of the fourteenth century. Lower down, at Prazzo Inferiore, the museum of hemp and women's work carries an Occitan name, Fremos, travai e tero, women, work and earth. Hemp was an important source of income for the valley, and it was the women who followed almost the whole cycle, while keeping house, fields and animals because the men were away looking for work.