Sport Itineraries: Saint-Nicolas

From the centre of Saint-Nicolas, where you can park the car, walk until the church.
After a short stretch on paved road, take the path on right called Bois de la Tour. In this wood you can find an educational path, called “the itinerary of the trees” equipped for visually impaired people. The round trip gets deeply in the woods of larches, firs and birches.
In the surroundings you can find the equipped pic-nic area, the parish church and the Belvedere, a panoramic point in La Cure hamlet with a view on the central Aosta Valley and on peaks as the Grivola, Gran Nomenon, Mont Emilius and Becca del Merlo.

When you get to Lac du Joux, after about 2 km from Vens, a hamlet of the municipality of Saint-Nicolas, park the car in the adjacent square. Take route 29 that runs along the lakeside and rises to the right into the conifer woods. The trail rapidly gains altitude and crosses the alpine pastures of the south side of Pointe Aouillette, to reach the point on the watershed crest between the central valley and the valley of Vertosan.

The easy and not very steep path starts from the small hamlet of Lyveroulaz, that can be reached following the regional road n.22 and taking the fork on the left.
After leaving the car at the beginning of the village continue until the last houses where the path begins.
The itinerary crosses a beautiful wood and reaches Saint-Nicolas meadows. After crossing them on the left, the path comes out near the church, from where you can enjoy one of the most beautiful panoramas on the Central Aosta Valley. On the left, after a few hundred metres, you can reach the Bois de la Tour forest and an equipped pic-nic area.

The itinerary starts from the so-called Salassi regional road above Chaillod hamlet, where you can leave the car.
A gravel road winds through forage areas and irrigated fields, a rich wealth of biodiversity of floral and grass species, until Rumiod hamlet.
Along the path you can see some old shelters, called “Crotteun”, built by shepherds to protect themselves from bad weather and from a panoramic point you can admire at 360 degrees the surrounding landscape and the most beautiful peaks of Aosta Valley.

From Vens take the itinerary n.30 that after 5 minutes turn on the left and follow the old and suggestive track along the irrigation channel Ru de Vens.
After a first equipped and exposed stretch with a view of Vedun, the path gets deeply in the larch and fir wood. Then the trail continues until to reach the gravel road which descends from the Col de Joux and which continues in the long and flat Vertosan valley full of mountain pastures.
Finally, you reach Jovençan hamlet, in Avise munipality, where you can find also a restaurant open in summer.

After leaving the car in the small parking lot in Vens hamlet, continue on itinerary n. 19 that, sometimes with short steep parts, leads to Joux lake. You can reach the lake with strollers on the traffic-free road that continues on the right. You will walk on this longer road later to come back to the departure point.
After reaching the lake go up slightly on the right and take, again on the right, path n.17 (also part of Cammino Balteo trek). The panoramic itinerary, halfway up the hill through woods and meadows, reaches a wide gravel road (200 metres ahead you can find Letanaz Dessous mountain pasture). You can come back along the gravel road that reaches the road that goes up to the lake. The last part of the itinerary runs on the paved road that goes down to Vens hamlet.

Starting fom Pont Suaz, near Aosta, you follow the left-hand bank of the Dora Baltea river uphill and make your way towards Aymavilles. This village lies at the entrance to the Cogne Valley, in a position that has enabled vine-growing to flourish.

You then reach Villeneuve, located at the junction leading to Introd and the valleys of Valsavarenche and Rhêmes and overlooked by the Church of Santa Maria and the ruins of the Châtel-Argent Castle, so named because silver coins were once minted there.

Continuing on, you pass through Arvier, nestled in a small hollow surrounded by vineyards, and then Avise. This ancient village, perched in a dominant position on the right-hand bank of the Dora (looking towards its source), is marked by the impressive remains of three medieval castles.  In Roman times it was a strategic point along the Via Galliarum.

As you climb to 1,200 metres, you arrive at the village of Saint-Nicolas, set on the edge of a small green hollow in a very sunny position. It is home to the “Centre d’Etudes Franco-provençales” created to safeguard and promote the patois, the Valle d’Aosta dialect of Franco-Provençal origins.

Places you go through on the route:
- Pont Suaz (550 m)
- Aymavilles 7.4 km (635 m)
- Villeneuve 10.6 km (655 m)
- Arvier 14.4 km (750 m)
- Cerellaz junction 17.2 km (780 m)
- Cerellaz 23.3 km (1,250 m)
- Vens/Saint-Vincent junction 25.6 km (1,285 m)
- Meod 31.4 km (1,530 m)
- Villair sur Sarre 38.9 km (1,200 m)
- Arpuilles - Gignod/Aosta junction 46.6 km (1,000 m)
- Aosta 52.7 km (590 m)