Courmayeur · Italy
The old village core
Observe how the streets turn: they are not straight, they wind. The village grew around the church, house after house, with nobody drawing any plan. It is the opposite of Aosta, where the Romans laid out a grid before building. Here the order came afterwards, out of necessity: one built out of the wind, on ground that held, beside the people one knew. Before the shops and the hotels, this was a village of farmers and herders cut off for months each winter. The houses were low, byre below and rooms above, to keep warm alongside the animals.
Go deeper
How old is the core?
The core is medieval, grown around the parish between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. Many buildings you see today are later, but they sit on the same plan.
Why curl around the church?
Because the church was the fixed point: everyone went, several times a week, and you built to be near it. Distance from the church door was a form of social hierarchy.
What was here before the shops?
Byres, haylofts and craftsmen’s workshops. Tourism arrived in the nineteenth century and changed everything within two generations: the same rooms that held cows held the first guests.
Where it is
More stories in Courmayeur
- The Aiguille Blanche
- The Aiguille Noire
- Duke of the Abruzzi Alpine Museum
- The Brenva Spur
- The Guides' House
- Church of Saint Pantaléon
- The quiet col
- The Col de la Seigne