Courmayeur · Italy

Entrèves, between the waters

The name indicates where you are. Entrèves means between the waters, because the village stands exactly where the two torrents descending from Val Veny and Val Ferret join and become the Dora. For centuries it was a small, practical place: the point at which one chose which valley to go up. Then, within thirty years, everything happened to it at once. The cableway to the glaciers arrived alongside, and a little further on the mouth of the tunnel opened, running beneath the mountain to France. A village of stone houses found itself at the edge of one of the busiest Alpine crossings in Europe. The old houses are still there in the middle of it, and one can see plainly that they were not expecting it.

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Where do the two torrents meet?

Just below the village. From there down the river is called the Dora Baltea and runs the length of the region into Piedmont. The two branches have different characters: the Val Veny one carries the cloudiness of the glaciers, the Val Ferret one runs clearer.

What did the tunnel change?

The traffic, heavy lorries above all, and with it the noise and the air. It also brought work and put Chamonix fifteen minutes away. It is the kind of project a small community does not decide and absorbs entirely, for better and worse.

Is the old village still there?

Yes, in the core around the church, a few streets worth walking. You can see the classic pattern of the valley there: stone houses, stone-slab roofs, and the hay barns above the byres so that the warmth of the animals rose into them.

Where it is

Entrèves, 11013 Courmayeur · 45.81542, 6.95876 · Open in Maps

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