Chapter Eighteen—Courmayuer: Is This Heaven? No, It’s Courmayeur

It’s time for another Alpine excursion. Skiing in Bardonecchia was fun, but let’s go to the Alps and just look at the mountains.

Getting to Courmayeur isn’t terribly difficult, but it takes some time, about three and a half hours total. Go to Porta Nuova first, where you’ll take a train to Aosta; that train is about two hours long. It’s a fine train and Aosta is a fine enough town to visit by itself, there are some fine Roman ruins there, so we can stop for a while in Aosta if you want, but I think we ought to go straight for the Alpine gold.

Out of the Aosta train station turn immediately to your right. You’ll see a bus station across the street (to the left), and that’s where you’ll buy your bus ticket and catch your bus. Both the train tickets and bus tickets, roundtrip, together, should cost about 25 Euros.

The bus ride from Aosta to Courmayeur is a treat. If it’s winter, the further up the mountain you go the more you’ll be surrounded by snow. If it’s not winter, you’ll be surrounded by cliffs, wonderfully green trees, and you’ll pass some lovely mountain towns and constantly be looking up to the sky-scraping peaks of the Alps.

When you get to Courmayeur, if you’re only taking a day trip, you should probably go inside the ticket office and check the return times of the buses, which, in the evening, should be hourly and should run until nine or so at night. And, of course, you also ought to know the times of the trains returning to Turin from Aosta.

Now let’s get started with this town. As you’ll see, Courmayeur is a very clean town, and my favorite part is the little pedestrian street that runs from a small piazza on one side until it stops at a street. From the bus station, just walk uphill; it’s easy to find, the main street in Courmayeur.

The street, Via Roma, is lined with shops, restaurants, cafés, and everything else Italian. As I said, there is a wonderful piazza—though small—at one end, with a gelato shop and some benches. The view from this piazza is stunning. With a gelato or espresso, it’s quite peaceful to sit at the benches with a book, or with a friend, and just be still. Read a book. Or do nothing. Just look at the mountains. Watch the Italian boys kick the soccer ball. Strike up a conversation with a stranger (when I went, I got involved in a conversation with an Englishman who had moved to a little French town just across the border). There’s a fine wine shop too, near the piazza, run by two middle-aged women who are very kind.

Soak up the Alps. We don’t have them at home.