Pont-Saint-Martin - Lillianes
Lillianes, Perloz, Pont-Saint-Martin
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Cammino Balteo
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Difficulties:E - Excursionist
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Best period:
March - November
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Departure:Pont-Saint-Martin (345 m)
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Arrival:Lillianes (652 m)
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Difference in level:+973 m -656 m
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length:8.177 m
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Ascent:4h00
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Duration coming back:3h35
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GPS tracks:
The monumental Roman bridge in Pont-Saint-Martin marks the entrance to the Aosta Valley and the start of the Cammino Balteo walking route. From here the route climbs to the village of Perloz, full of unexpected glimpses of the past, to continue to Lillianes, arranged around its elegant eighteenth-century bridge joining the banks of the river Lys.
Description of the route
The Cammino Balteo begins here, at Pont-Saint-Martin. The village owes its name first and foremost to the magnificent Roman bridge dating from the 1st century BC, and the legend of St Martin of Tours, who had to outwit the devil in order to build the bridge. The route follows the course of the river Lys upstream through the lands of the powerful Valleise family.
Perloz, a cluster of houses bravely clinging to the rocky slope, dominated by noble strongholds under the protection of the sanctuary of Notre-Dame de La Garde. A medieval village whose name is also linked to the struggle of the Partisans, thanks to the fascinating Museum of the Resistance, named after the fearless Lys Brigade.
Having crossed the Lys, the route continues on a natural balcony halfway up the slope, to Lillianes, where visitors are greeted by the striking stone bridge built in 1733 - the only four-arched example in the Aosta Valley - and the pretty parish church of San Rocco. A first taste of the Gressoney Valley.
