What to visit in Maurienne: history, forts, passes and sacred valleys

Maurienne is much more than just an Alpine axis: it is the living memory of historical passages, border struggles, pilgrims, mountain communities and omnipresent nature. Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne au Mont Cenis Pass, Via Bessan et BonnevalThis itinerary retraces a story of stone, water, faith, and violence. It tells, step by step, how the power of the valley was woven, forged in Alpine geopolitics, and how it continues to radiate an intimate emotion today.

Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne: the blessing hand, the Three Fingers and the echoes of salt

You have to take the time to stroll around Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, the historic heart of the valley, to grasp its density. More than just a stop on the Alpine road, it is a city loaded with symbols, legends, and historical stratifications. She owes her birth to a relic — three fingers of the right hand of Saint John the Baptist, reported in the 6th century from Alexandria by Saint Thecla, a fugitive Visigoth princess and founding figure of the diocese. This sacred relic not only gave its name to the city, but also its legendary coat of arms: a hand with three raised fingers, still visible today on municipal pediments and local signs.

Religious importance in the Middle Ages

It is around this relic that the Saint John the Baptist Cathedral, the spiritual center of a vast diocese covering the western Alps. The current building, rebuilt between the 11th and 12th centuries in a sober Romanesque style, exudes a grave solemnity. It is entered through a portal with historiated capitals, and there you will discover a clear nave with barrel vaults, a choir decorated with a white marble canopy. canonical cloister, attached to the cathedral, is a jewel of silence, whose twin columns and arches tell in their own way the story of the roots of religious power. It contains the tomb of Humbert of the White Hands, the origin of the dynasty of the House of Savoy which reigned over the Alps for almost a millennium.

How to get to Maurienne — The town of Saint Jean de Maurienne

The economic importance of Saint Jean de Maurienne

But Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne was not only a city of faith. From the late Middle Ages, it became a strategic trading hub, salt road crossroads between Tarentaise, Maurienne and Piedmont. The salt, from the salt marshes of Moûtiers or transported from the Ligurian ports, passed through the Alpine passes and crossed Saint-Jean, which drew taxes, markets, and dynamism from it. This discreet wealth can still be seen in the grid map of the old townWithin arcades of merchants' housesWithin wrought iron signs hanging from the walls of the alleyways. We imagine the convoys of mules descending the passes, the noise of the market in the square, the exchanges between peddlers, notaries and religious figures.

Later, aluminum made the city rich, and the future is being prepared with the drilling of the Base Tunnel for the High-Speed Railway Line between Lyon and Turin.

A city to visit

The city also preserves from its past a remarkable collection of civil and religious buildings:
- the crypt of the cathedral, Carolingian vestige with massive pillars;
- Notre-Dame church, with its dazzling Baroque decor, which was for a long time the parish church of the upper town;
- the chapel of Saint-Antoine, former hospital outbuilding dedicated to lepers;
- and finally the Opinel museum, installed in the original workshop of the famous family of cutlers, emblem of Savoyard popular genius.

Looking up to the heights, we see the Aiguilles d'Arves, whose very particular silhouette - three sharp peaks rising against the sky - has, according to oral tradition, inspired the imagery of the blessing hand of Saint John. A poetic way of uniting stone and faith, landscape and the sacred.

Even today, this modestly sized town continues to radiate its unique identity: both spiritual and commercial, mountainous and connected, peaceful and lively. To walk its streets is to go up a tightrope between the ages, a thread made of blond stone, sacred legend, and alpine light.

Fortifications to visit in Maurienne

The Esseillon Forts: Unfulfilled Promises and Alpine Bastions

On a rocky lock overlooking the Arc between Aussois and Avrieux, all of the Esseillon Forts — Victor Emmanuel, Charles Felix, Charles Albert, Marie Christine, Marie Therese — was built between 1819 and 1834 by the Kingdom of Sardinia. Inspired by Montalembert, they formed a defensive staircase protecting against the French invaders.

Victims of a strategic repositioning following the Treaty of Turin of 1860, the Esseillon forts were made obsolete by the change of border which attached Savoy to France. The fort Charles-Felix, positioned furthest to the east, was the symbolic victim: it was partially dismantled, as a political gesture to maintain friendly relations between the two countries. But the demolition was incomplete. The promise, as is often the case in Alpine geopolitics, remained half-held, and the other forts — Victor Emmanuel, Marie Therese, Charles Albert, Marie-Christine — were simply decommissioned, without being destroyed. They were then abandoned, taken over, and then forgotten, until their rediscovery as heritage sites at the turn of the 21st century.

This strategic incompleteness, far from being trivial, is a godsend for today's visitors: it allows us to enter a star defense system, built according to the innovative principles of Montalembert, and to read there in the open air the evolution of the military doctrines of the 19th century. The polygonal enclosure of Fort Victor-Emmanuel, its buried casemates, its galleries cut into the rock, make it one of the masterpieces of military engineering in the Western Alps.

Military architecture in Savoy — One of the Esseillon forts

The Replaton Fort

But the forts of Esseillon are only the keystone of a larger wholeAs technology evolves, Alpine defense moves, expands, and improves. Thus, new military works such as the Replaton Fort, on the heights of Modane, built to monitor the railway breakthrough of the Fréjus tunnel opened in 1871. The Sapey fort, just above the latter, watches over the valley. Then comes the Mont-Froid Fort, at an altitude of 2800 meters, a veritable lookout post on the Col du Clapier, the natural border with Italy. This fort, more modern and better integrated into the relief, bears witness to the transition from a linear fortification to a deep network, adapted to mechanical mobility and electrification.

The Telegraph Fort

A little away from the Aussois lock, above Valloire, stands another little-known but spectacular sentinel: the Telegraph FortBuilt between 1885 and 1890 at an altitude of 1581 metres on a narrow rocky spur, it dominates the Arc Valley and Galibier pass, monitoring with strategic precision the northern access to the Haute Maurienne. Its name comes from the presence, from 1807, of a Chappe semaphore, an optical telegraphy system that connected Lyon to Milan via the Alps. The Fort du Télégraphe, built much later, takes up the idea of the signal and reinforces it: designed to accommodate a garrison of more than 150 men, it was both surveillance post, barracks and observatory, equipped with a cistern, kitchen and powder magazine. Today, the ascent to its ramparts offers a 360 ° view over the valley, the peaks of the Vanoise, and even as far as the Écrins on a clear day. The fort, sometimes open to visitors, bears witness to this high altitude observation network, meshing the Alps at the end of the 19th century in a silent ballet of signals and crossed lines of fire.

Today, these Alpine strongholds have become cultural sentinels. Placed in the pine forests of Aussois or hanging on the cliffs of the plateau, they shelter permanent exhibitions, immersive courses, living history festivals, and even tree climbing installed between the walls. By visiting them, one discovers not only breathtaking panoramas of the valleys and peaks, but also a whole section of the history of Alpine Europe, where the The mountain has always been a frontier, a fortress, but also a place of shared memory.

The Mont-Cenis Pass: from ancestral crossing to disputed border

A historic pass for crossing the Alps

Le Mont Cenis Pass, at an altitude of 2083 meters, is not just another Alpine pass. It is one of the oldest and most strategic passages in the Western Alps, used since Antiquity to connect the Italian peninsula to Gaul. This natural path, already trodden by Hannibal's armies according to some hypotheses, was used by Carolingian emperors, monks, merchants, and then sovereigns of all eras.

Under Charlemagne, it became an axis of Alpine Christianization. Napoleon, a millennium later, had a road traced there passable road to transport his troops to Italy. A road that would long be nicknamed "the imperial road," paved with stone and lined with milestones. Until the beginning of the 20th century, it remained one of the few transalpine accesses passable almost all year round.

But Mont-Cenis is also a major geopolitical point of tension. Border between France and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, it became a potential line of confrontation after Italian unification. However, it was only in 1947, with the Treaty of Paris, that the ridge line is definitively attributed to France, thus refocusing the Haute-Maurienne in the national fold, and transforming the pass into French territory. A shift that symbolically closes centuries of border issues... while opening a new page of cooperation.

A fortified mountain: the forgotten bastions of Mont-Cenis

Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, in a climate of mistrust between Republican France and the newly unified Italy, the two countries embarked on a race for fortification on the heights of Mont-Cenis.

On the Italian side, a real crown of forts is erected to monitor the ridge line: Bramble, built between 1877 and 1880 on a rocky spur overlooking the lake; Variselle, more discreet, but crucial for locking the valley; and Pattacreuse, at 2500 meters, in a hostile environment, where the troops had to face the snow more than the enemy.

Facing them, on the French side, rises the Turra Fort, built from 1890. It offers a commanding view of the entire Mont-Cenis plateau and blocks access to the pass from Lanslebourg. These positions were intended to be impregnable... but never fired a shot at each other. During the Second World War, the soldiers stationed in these forts experienced limited combat, often frozen in expectation, before history overtook them. The Alpine Maginot Lines, unsuited to modern warfare, were abandoned without having really been used.

Today these military relics, forgotten by the crowds, sleep on the heightsSome are still accessible on foot for curious hikers, who will discover behind the loopholes the open horizon of a peace finally won.

The Mont Cenis Pass — The road to the Mont Cenis pass, on the edge of the lake.

From conflict to water: the hydroelectric transformation of Mont-Cenis

After decades of military tension, the Mont-Cenis basin enters a new era in the 20th century: that of water exploitation, a precious resource and driving force behind Alpine development. As early as 1921, a large hydroelectric project is launched, aiming to transform the plateau into energy reservoir, capable of supplying the entire Maurienne valley and part of Piedmont.

Un rockfill dam is built at an altitude of over 1970 meters, forming a huge artificial turquoise blue lake, one of the highest in Europe. Its capacity of 317 million m³ makes the site a pillar of the EDF network, but also a balance point between industrial production, environmental preservation and Alpine tourism.

To mark this turning point, a memorial pyramid is erected on the very spot where the former Napoleonic hospice stood. A symbol of both restored peace between France and Italy, and of transition between a military mountain and a cooperative mountain, this pyramid now overlooks the lake, like a sentinel of the future.

The Mont-Cenis site thus became a plural space of memory, mixing the traces of war, the infrastructures of modernity, and the silent calls of the landscape. Every hiker, every cyclist, every dreamer who stops there between the short grass and the blue stones understands then that water has replaced the cannon, and the horizon has become sharing instead of separation.

The heritage of the villages of Haute Maurienne

The villages that today make up the commune of Val Cenis draw a lifeline between the peaks and the Arc, punctuated by Romanesque bell towers, slate roofs, and ancestral paths. Bramans, one of the first of these coming from Modane, fits all these characteristics well. Each has its own identity, shaped by centuries, faith, stone, and snow.

Termignon: the village at the gateway to Vanoise

Nestled between forest and torrents, Termignon is a town of character, structured around a baroque church from the 17th century with a twisted bell tower and a group of old houses housing communal ovens, wash houses, and small chapels. You can still see the old ones there cheese cellars, because Termignon was for a long time a high place of refining, in particular of blue of Termignon, this exceptional cheese with natural mold.

But the soul of the village flourishes above all in its suspended trails, like the one that leads to The Turra or the family plan of the Buttocks, by a balcony climb offering open views of the Arc gorges. Following the old customs path, you reach the ruins of a medieval hospice, a vestige of a time when Termignon welcomed pilgrims, peddlers and soldiers going up to the Mont Cenis Pass.

Lanslebourg: historic gateway to Mont-Cenis

Where the valley begins to steepen sharply, Lanslebourg was for a long time the last great relay before the pass. From the 15th century, travelers stopped there to have their mounts blessed, their carts repaired or to eat in the inns. From this period, what remains noble facades, carved frames, and especially theSaint Sebastian Church, with remarkable frescoes painted directly on the plaster in the 17th century by artists from the Varallo valley.

The ascent to the pass can be an opportunity for a stop at hamlet of La Ramasse, perched on a flat area: it is accessed by an old mule track, lined with wooden crosses and dry stone walls, offering panoramas over the steep valley and the cliffs of Parrachée.

Lanslevillard: Baroque memory and luminous horizons

Separated from Lanslebourg by the Arc gorge, Lanslevillard develops a completely different character. Less border-like, more pastoral, it is dominated by mountain pastures that slope gently up to the ridges.Saint-Michel church, remodeled at several times, is one of the most beautiful in the Haute Maurienne, with its altarpiece carved in gilded wood, its processional statues, and a popular Stations of the Cross. Outside, the mountain cemetery, open to the peaks, evokes the attachment of men to their land.

From the village, you can reach the hamlets of Chantelouve et Esseillon-le-Vieux by side roads lined with mossy walls. These places, forgotten by mass tourism, offer a suspended atmosphere, where half-collapsed sheepfolds tell of the harsh climate, and where torrents whisper the story of vanished glaciers.

Summer hiking in Bessans — The landscape around Bessans

Bessans: devils, mysticism and celestial hikes

Bessan, at an altitude of 1750 meters, is undoubtedly the the most unusual village in Haute Maurienne. Firstly, by its geographical position, on a large suspended plateau, bathed in light. Then by its unique culture, inherited from centuries ofisolation and creativity.

The silhouette of the village is punctuated by sculptures, notably that of the famous devils of Bessans, small wooden figures, half-protective, half-demonic, that locals have been making since the 19th century in memory of a comical episode between the priest and the sacristan. Today, almost every home has one, visible on balconies in winter.

On the heritage side, don't miss the Saint Anthony Chapel,parish church of Saint John the Baptist and its onion-domed bell tower, nor the Museum of Sacred Art where objects of popular piety are exhibited, both naive and moving.

But Bessans is also a hiking crossroads exceptional. The Avérole valley, accessible in all seasons, leads to a isolated refuge, in a grandiose glacial cirque. Further on, the Ribon valley, more secret, reveals giant cauldrons, exuberant alpine flora, and cliffs populated by bearded vultures. These are places where nature remains untamed, and where the walker becomes humble again in the face of the verticality of the world.

Bonneval-sur-Arc: eternal stone and vertical silence

At the very end of the road, Bonneval sur Arc seems to emerge from a bygone era. Classified among the most beautiful villages in France, he is the ultimate guardian of the valley, watching over the Col de l'Iseran, the final passage to the Tarentaise. Its houses are all made of stone and wood, covered with thick slates. No modern housing here: everything is preserved, even the standing wooden apiaries, Baraccas serving as granaries, the collective watering troughs where horses once came to quench their thirst.

The heart of the village is dominated by theChurch of Our Lady of the Assumption, both modest and powerful, with its onion-domed bell tower and sculpted porch. The interior, decorated with votive objects and ancient ornaments, exudes Alpine fervor.

But it is when leaving the village that we enter the legend. By a small mule track, we reach the hamlets of the Ecot and the Duis, high-altitude jewels where time seems to have deserted. There, facing the hanging glaciers of the Vanoise, between white waterfalls and golden eagles, you will understand what the word "silence" means. You can hear the rustling of the wind, footsteps in the snow or dust depending on the season, and sometimes the laughter of a shepherd returning to his land.

Further north, the summer road crosses the Iseran Pass, the highest road pass in France and provides access to the Isère valley, the Tarentaise.

Walk with AlpAddict in the streets of Bonneville sur Arc — The central street of the village of Bonneville sur Arc in winter

De Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne at the neck of Mont-Cenis, this heritage route reveals Maurienne as a living theater of history, modern fortification, sacred firmness of the hamlets, border and sovereign nature.

This is not just another circuit, but a journey into alpine memory, where stones speak, waters converse, and villages retain their souls. You will leave with the echo of a powerful past, a powerful geography, and above all the feeling of having crossed a valley of rare expression—and still being written.

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