Susa

Susa sits fifty kilometers west of Torino, on the road that climbs toward the Moncenisio and Montgenèvre passes into France. Ligurians and Celts settled the site around 500 BC. It later emerged as the capital of the kingdom of the Cozii under Marcus Julius Cottius, son of King Donnus, who allied with Rome and was confirmed as prefect of the new province of Alpes Cottiae, with Segusio, modern Susa, as its capital: the arch in the town center and the town's name in the Cottian Alps both descend from that alliance.

The old core, arch, cathedral and castle, sits compact around the Roman gate that the castle absorbed into its later walls, with the amphitheatre just outside that line. The pilgrim route threads through this core on its way down from the pass, meaning the town has functioned as a waypoint on the same north-south line, Roman road, medieval pilgrimage route, alpine crossing, since Ligurians and Celts first settled it. What the Cozii capital, the pilgrim stop and the mountain gateway add up to is a single fact repeated across the centuries the arch and the campanile have stood: Susa exists because of the road, not beside it.