Gran Paradiso National Park: weekend of nature, culture and gastronomy, in wild valleys

The mountain in autumn is a difficult creature to manage: he starts throwing tantrums, stringing together rainy days one after the other, until he just wants to sit in front of the fireplace with a cup of herbal tea in his hand. However, this is also the season when he wears his best clothes, and the dyed woods from foliage they leave you speechless: as in Valle Orco and Val Soanajust an hour and a half’s drive from Turin, on the Piedmont side of Gran Paradiso National Park.

The Orco Valley

When I get to Royal Ceresoleafter an excellent lunch break based on the typical meat losato theTraveller’s Inn, it stops raining and the clouds lift. A walk from Chiapili village towards the Nivolet Hillson the road closed to cars since October 15th, and we are already in the heart of the forests bright with the yellow of the larches and the red of the maples and beeches, dotted with houses and mountain huts with stone roofs.

Here we meet Raffaella Miravalle, one of the few female park rangers: «I have been doing this job for 25 years, fortunately before me there were others who paved the way, but some still consider it a man’s job. Our tasks follow the course of the seasons very much: in winter we carry out surveys for the avalanche bulletins, at the beginning of spring we take care of wildlife monitoring, when the animals are in the mating season and are therefore more manageable. Black grouse, ptarmigan, eagles and bearded vultures they are the inhabitants of this area. September is the period of the ibex and chamois count: in years with normal rainfall like this one, the little ones manage to get nourishment at the right time and therefore there is a good number of specimens that survive. However, global warming greatly damages these animals, which do not have sweat glands: the only option they have to escape the abnormal summer heat is to climb higher and higher, where it also becomes difficult to feed themselves».

The ibex is the symbolic animal of the Gran Paradiso Park: at the visitor center of Ceresole there is an interesting exhibition on this animal, whose ancestors came from the Far East and migrated to Europe following the mountainous reliefs. During the glaciation periods they dropped in altitude, and then definitively settled in the Alps after the final retreat of the glaciers. Today, these animals are monitored by park rangers, who measure their weight and height every year.

ueuaphoto – stock.adobe.com

Val Soana

Returning towards the valley, we take the turn for the Val Soana: wild and still untouched by tourism, this valley seems to have crystallized in an ancient past. The houses built of stone and immersed in the autumn fog blend perfectly with the foliage and waterfalls that descend here and there from the peaks. Here there are some well-maintained trekking routes suitable for everyone for a morning walk, such as Pian della Zaria.

There Val Soana it is a land that has hosted copper processing for millenniastill witnessed today by Ronco’s forge. Before the advent of steam engines, the only energy that could make an industrial plant work was water: the Alpine valleys with rushing torrents were therefore lively places of work. In the mid-18th century, the depopulation of Val Soana began, whose inhabitants emigrated to France, the place where the language closest to their dialect was spoken. Even today in summer the valley is filled with sixth or seventh generation Valsoanini, residents in Paris but strongly linked to their place of origin.

Silvia Pesce

There forge of Ronco Canavese it has survived all these historical vicissitudes, and represents a true industrial plant ante litteram (it dates back to 1600), as well as an opportunity to understand the functioning of a process that has been fundamental for millennia for the inhabitants of the mountains. «The copper was extracted from the stone in a blast furnace capable of reaching temperatures of 1100°Cbut without exceeding them, so as not to reach the melting temperature of iron. The metal was then melted in another furnace, poured into refractory clay molds and then beaten with hammers. These were powered by a water mill, which is located outside the structure. This forge was capable of producing 1500-1800 copper vessels a day, which were sold wholesale and then refined by artisans, says Donatella Steffenina, Park Guide.

In Val Soana the restaurant is to be recommended White Eaglein the locality Pianprato (also with the Quality Mark): tra polenta, risotto and braised meat, you won’t end the weekend without satisfying your desire for good food. Returning to the valley is always a bad shock for me: the peaks give way to the hills, and then to the plains and the cities, but the yellow leaves of the Park’s woods remain there, witnesses of the autumn that will give way to winter.

Luciano Ramires Urtier

Gastronomic delights with the Quality Mark

The Park also has a lot to offer from a culinary point of view: in the evening it is possible to delight the palate with a tasting of typical products with Gran Paradiso Quality Markobtained only from structures that meet certain standards in terms of typicality and sustainability. As rhododendron and alpine flora honey produced by Marco Pezzettior the local cured meats and cheeses La Bohchèra d’la Nonna Piera: ham, game salami, mocetta and last but not least, a taste of genepì grown and produced in these valleys.

If you are looking for comfortable accommodation with attention to the smallest details, with a touch of Alpine tradition, we recommend the Chalet del Lago di Ceresole, also excellent from a catering point of view, with fresh handmade pasta and excellent meat dishes ( no, Piedmontese cuisine does not wink at vegetarians).

The Chalet on Lake Ceresole.