Alagna and Pedemonte: the wood still speaks Walser

Almost everyone in Alagna Valsesia looks up at the face of Monte Rosa and leaves it at that. Few cross the torrent and climb a few minutes to Pedemonte, the hamlet known in the Walser tongue as Z'Kantmud, set at around 1,246 metres at the foot of Monte Tagliaferro. Here the noise of the ski lifts fades, and what remains is the dark roofs, the wooden balconies, the scent of seasoned larch.

The Walser reached this head of the valley towards the end of the thirteenth century, a mountain people able to live year-round where others climbed only in summer. They built with what they had: a stone base against damp and frost, and above it timber, notched log upon log using the Blockbau technique, without nails. Hardy larch on the outside, softer and more insulating fir within. Houses meant to last generations, not seasons.

The landscape is defined by the lobie, the long wooden loggias that run along the façades. They served to dry hay, to cure rye, to store firewood for winter. Today they look like simple balconies, but they tell of a high-altitude economy of survival, made of very little waste and a great deal of patience.

The heart of Pedemonte is the Walser Museum, set up in 1976 inside a house bearing the date 1628 and restored to its original character. Through furnishings, tools and clothing, it recreates the daily life of a community that handed down its language and its customs almost entirely by word of mouth. It is worth checking opening times before heading up, as they follow seasonal rhythms.

The right time is late spring or early autumn, when the meadows are green, the larches blaze with colour and Alagna is not yet overrun by the hikers of the peak months. You reach it on foot from the centre in a few minutes: no queues, only the silence of wood that goes on speaking Walser.

Getting there

By car, Alagna Valsesia is reached by driving up the whole of the Valsesia: leave the A26 motorway at Romagnano Sesia-Ghemme and follow the SS299 road to the end of the valley, passing through Varallo. Alagna has no railway station of its own: the rail hubs are Varallo Sesia and Vercelli, from which you continue by scheduled bus. The most convenient airport is Milan Malpensa, followed by Turin Caselle.

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