Until 1937 the village was called Vayes. The regime italianised the name and never gave it back, while other Franco-Provençal-speaking comuni did get theirs back. Before Vayes the documents say Vaga, Baes, Villa, Vadiarum, and the inhabitants were the Vaionaces, a name probably older than the tenth century.
The gneiss quarry has been worked for centuries, and at the end of the nineteenth century the stonecutters turned up polished stone tools and pottery fragments. The rock shelter at Baità carries the name of its 1890 discoverer; the old town hall, put up in 1677, now houses the Museo Laboratorio della Preistoria, and Vayes can still be read on its front.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Vaie
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
