Aosta · Italy

The villages the city swallowed

Arpuilles is a village and, at the same time, it is Aosta. Like a couple of dozen other settlements scattered over the hillside and the flat, it possesses its own chapel, its own fountain, its own name in patois and its own feast day once a year, but for more than a century the address has said Aosta. This is what happens to a village when the commune around it becomes a city: it continues to exist and ceases to decide. The houses remain where they were, the fields become gardens, the school closes because the children go down into town. What is striking is how little has been lost: ask somebody from here where they are from and they will not answer Aosta, they will answer the name of the village, and expect you to know where it stands.

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How many of these villages are there?

About twenty inside the commune, from the valley floor up the hillside: Arpuilles, Excenex, Porossan, Signayes, Entrebin and others. Some are a handful of houses, others still have a square and a bar. All of them have a name that is not Italian.

What happens on the village feast day?

Mass in the chapel, a long lunch, and people coming back from elsewhere for it. These are the occasions when a village still counts its families. In a valley where a lot of people left for work, coming back for the feast is a way of staying on the list.

Is it worth coming up here?

If you want to understand how this valley is organised, yes. From up here you see the city below, the vines on their terraces, the channels cutting across the slope and the mountains opposite. It is the same story as the city, told from further off.

Where it is

Arpuilles, 11100 Aosta · 45.7509, 7.30465 · Open in Maps

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