Courmayeur · Italy

The Pavillon and the cableway

This terrace at 2,173 metres was the first stage of an idea that seemed impossible in 1947: a cable car above the glaciers, from Italy into France, across the top of Mont Blanc. Dino Lora Totino, a textile industrialist from Biella obsessed with mountains, built it regardless, section by section, up to the Col du Géant and then beyond, over the Vallée Blanche towards Chamonix. For decades it was the only way of crossing the massif without walking. The present cabins are new and rotate slowly as they climb, but the line is his. Beside the station lies a garden of alpine plants, among the highest in Europe, which carries the name of a flower dedicated to Saussure.

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How high does it go?

To Punta Helbronner at about 3,460 metres, on the edge of the Col du Géant. In summer a second, smaller gondola carries on from there across the Vallée Blanche to the Aiguille du Midi, above Chamonix.

What grows up here?

Hundreds of species, from these mountains and from ranges elsewhere in the world that sit at similar heights. The growing season is about three months, so the garden is only open in summer.

Why build it at all?

Lora Totino wanted the crossing to exist and had the money to make it. He built cableways elsewhere in the Alps too. It was a private obsession that turned into infrastructure, which is how a surprising amount of the mountains came to be built.

Where it is

Pavillon du Mont Fréty, 11013 Courmayeur · 45.82916, 6.94979 · Open in Maps

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