Themed picks · Turin · Mountains
10 mountain comuni near Turin
Ten towns: what each is best for, what a home costs, and the catch. In Turin's center a square meter costs €1,600 to €4,500; here it starts at €660, in Ostana.
10 comuni · within 120 minutes of Turin · drive times by road from the city center
The Western Alps west and north of Turin hold the highest concentration of high-elevation comuni in Italy: the Val di Susa runs from the city's edge to the French border at the Frejus tunnel; the Val Pellice climbs into the Cottian Alps; the Valle d'Aosta arc spreads across the north and holds the country's highest villages (Gressoney-La-Trinité, Ayas, Cogne, Courmayeur). Many are full-on ski resorts in winter; in summer they reset as hiking and high-pasture villages, with the Aosta cheeses (Fontina DOP), the Piemontese mountain salumi, and the wine produced at the highest altitudes in Europe (the Cave du Vin du Blanc at Morgex, 1,200 m).
Turin is the right base because the city's motorway and rail position puts the Val di Susa inside an hour, the lower Aosta valleys inside 90 minutes, and the high villages of Aosta and Valle Pellice inside two hours. The city itself rewards a long stay (the Porta Palazzo market, the Egyptian Museum, the Mole Antonelliana cinema museum, the porticoes of via Po and via Roma), and the rail spine handles the day trips when you do not want to drive: the Torino-Aosta line runs into the lower Aosta valley, and the Torino-Bardonecchia line handles the upper Val di Susa.
We picked ten comuni spread across the Val di Susa and the Val Chisone (Susa, Usseaux, Fenestrelle), the Lys, Ayas, Valtournenche and Great St Bernard valleys of Valle d'Aosta (Gressoney-Saint-Jean, Fontainemore, Ayas, Valtournenche, Etroubles), the Occitan Valle Po (Ostana) and the Vermenagna valley under the Tenda pass (Limone Piemonte). Drive times below are by road from the center of Turin. Cogne and Courmayeur, the best-known Aosta villages, are a few minutes past two hours away, just beyond this list's drive.
The towns
1Torino · Piemonte · 1 h 32 min from Turin
Usseaux
Best for a walk through the old town. It is on the list of Italy's most beautiful villages.
homes €680 to €1,000 a m² in the center · 174 people
A Val Chisone village at 1,416 meters with four scattered borgate and more than forty murals painted across the stone facades.
More than forty wall paintings turn the four borgate into an open-air alpine gallery of peasant life and forest scenes.
High-Alpine comune at 1416 m.
The catch: January nights average 7 degrees below zero.
2Aosta Valley · Aosta Valley · 1 h 51 min from Turin
Etroubles
Best for a stage of a long walk. The Via Francigena passes through.
homes €1,550 to €2,100 a m² in the center · 476 people
A 476-person Alpine village at 1,280 meters, with an open-air contemporary art museum and the region's first dairy.
Contemporary sculptures and installations from international artists embedded in the streets and house façades of a 476-person Alpine village.
High-Alpine comune at 1280 m.
The catch: January nights average 4 degrees below zero.
3Aosta Valley · Aosta Valley · 1 h 30 min from Turin
Gressoney-Saint-Jean
Best for a ski week. There is a mapped ski area in the comune.
homes €3,000 to €4,500 a m² in the center · 767 people
A Walser village in the Lys valley where Titsch is still spoken and the Lyskamm glacier closes the view.
A Walser community of the Lys valley, with Titsch still spoken and traditional stadel architecture preserved in the hamlets.
High-Alpine comune at 1385 m.
The catch: January nights average 7 degrees below zero.
4Torino · Piemonte · 1 h 24 min from Turin
Fenestrelle
Best for a slow weekend. The Touring Club gives it its orange flag for small inland towns.
homes €870 to €1,300 a m² in the center · 471 people
A village below the largest alpine fortress in Europe, three kilometers of stone climbing the ridge above it.
Largest alpine fortification in Europe at 130 hectares, second-largest stone fortification in the world after the Great Wall of China.
High-Alpine comune at 1154 m.
The catch: January nights average 5 degrees below zero.
5Cuneo · Piemonte · 1 h 34 min from Turin
Ostana
Best for a walk through the old town. It is on the list of Italy's most beautiful villages.
homes €660 to €950 a m² in the center · 87 people
An 87-resident Occitan-speaking alpine borgo at 1,280m in the upper Po valley, rebuilt from near-abandonment into an architecturally celebrated mountain village with a direct frontal view of Monviso.
The most spectacular Italian-village head-on view of Monviso (3,841m, source of the Po). Picture-postcard angle from every village terrace.
Occitan-Alpine comune at 1280 m.
The catch: January nights average 3 degrees below zero.
6Aosta Valley · Aosta Valley · 1 h 22 min from Turin
Fontainemore
Best for a small town. 447 people live here.
homes €1,200 to €1,600 a m² in the center · 447 people
A 447-person Walser-influenced village at 760 meters in the Lys Valley, marked by its stone bridge and a five-yearly pilgrimage to Oropa.
Five-yearly procession to the Sanctuary of Oropa over the Colle della Balma, documented since 1557, among the oldest Marian walks in the western Alps.
Alpine valley comune at 760 m.
7Cuneo · Piemonte · 1 h 43 min from Turin
Limone Piemonte
Best for a trip without a car. The train stops in the commune.
homes €2,100 to €3,100 a m² in the center · 1,343 people
A ski village at 1,000 meters in the Vermenagna valley, the southern end of the Alps where the Tenda tunnel drops toward the Côte d'Azur.
80 km of slopes from 1,050 to 2,085 meters, the southernmost serious ski domain in the western Alps.
High-Alpine comune at 1000 m.
8Aosta Valley · Aosta Valley · 1 h 38 min from Turin
Ayas
Best for a long lunch. A food guide lists 1568 dell'Hotel Aethos Monterosa here.
homes €3,800 to €5,600 a m² in the center · 1,358 people
A scattered upper-valley commune of three villages, where Walser settlers and Romance-speaking herders share the slopes below Castor and Pollux.
The 4,000-meter peaks of Castor, Pollux and the Breithorn close the valley head, fed by the Verra glacier.
High-Alpine comune at 1710 m.
The catch: January nights average 8 degrees below zero.
9Aosta Valley · Aosta Valley · 1 h 34 min from Turin
Valtournenche
Best for a long lunch. Food guides list three tables here.
homes €2,600 to €3,900 a m² in the center · 2,189 people
The valley under the Cervino, home of the guides who raced Whymper up the mountain in 1865.
The Italian face of the Matterhorn, 4,478 meters, climbed first from this side by Jean-Antoine Carrel in July 1865.
High-Alpine comune at 1524 m.
The catch: January nights average 6 degrees below zero.
10Torino · Piemonte · 53 min from Turin
Susa
Best for everyday life on foot. Nine of the ten everyday services we look for are mapped within 500 meters of the center.
homes €660 to €1,100 a m² · 5,840 people
The Roman gateway at 503 meters, seat of the Cozii under Augustus and Cottius.
Capital of the Alpes Cottiae under Cottius and Augustus, with the Arch of 9 to 8 BC and a small amphitheatre still standing in the center.
Mountain comune at 503 m.
We write about towns like these one town at a time, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, from Turin.
Why Turin is the base
Turin holds the only Centrale-grade rail station in north-west Italy, the airport (TRN) at Caselle, and the A32 motorway running straight up the Val di Susa to the Mont Blanc tunnel. The city itself is the largest urban center against the Alps in Europe: from the porticoes of via Roma you see the Susa valley peaks framing the western horizon. The cooking closes the loop on a mountain trip: tajarin with Bra cheese, the agnolotti del plin, and the various polenta dishes that travel between the city and the alpine valleys.
When to go
May through October for the mountain comuni: the snow clears late at high altitude (sometimes through May above 1,500 m), the higher villages only fully open from late June, and the September larch-needle color turn through the Aosta valleys runs into late October. July and August are the high-season mountain months; the villages fill with Italian families. December through April is the ski season: the Sestriere / Val di Susa circuit (Olympic 2006 venues) and the Aosta resorts run full programs.
Questions people ask
- What is the highest comune in this list?
- Ayas in Valle d'Aosta, at 1,710 m. Then Valtournenche under the Matterhorn at 1,524 m, Usseaux in the upper Val Chisone at 1,416 m, Gressoney-Saint-Jean at 1,385 m and Ostana at 1,280 m, each about an hour and a half from Turin by car. Cogne (1,534 m) is higher than all but Ayas, and sits just beyond this list's two-hour drive.
- Can I take a day trip to the Alps from Turin by train?
- Yes. The Torino-Bardonecchia regional line runs the spine of the Val di Susa, with stops at Susa, Oulx, and Bardonecchia. The Torino-Aosta line handles the lower Aosta valley with stops at Pont-Saint-Martin and Aosta itself. From those rail hubs, the upper villages need a bus or a taxi but are reachable for the day.
- What is Occitan-dialect Piedmont?
- The Cottian Alps west and south-west of Turin contain a chain of comuni where the historical language is Occitan (the same language family as Provençal in southern France). Ostana, Crissolo, Sampeyre and the Val Maira villages are the main centers; the dialect is still spoken by some older residents and supported by a cultural-association network. The food crosses the border too: the local cheeses, the bagna càuda variants, the chestnut traditions.
- Is Courmayeur worth visiting in summer?
- Yes. The winter ski crowds clear out, the Mont Blanc cable car (Skyway Monte Bianco) runs to Punta Helbronner at 3,466 m year-round (clear-weather summer is the best window), and the high-pasture cheese-making at the malghe above the village runs from late June through early September. It is a little over two hours by car from Turin, just beyond this list's radius.
How we picked these · We took every town in our catalogue within two hours of Turin by car (90 of them), kept the 15 in Alpine country (or at 500 meters or more in the provinces of Turin and Aosta, where that height is already the mountains), and ranked them by elevation, by Borghi più belli, Borghi Autentici and Bandiera Arancione, and by how close they are. Cogne and Courmayeur sit just past the two-hour mark on the alpine roads.
