Unexpected Sunshine in La Thuile

25/03/2025

We had finally made it to Italy! We exited the Mont Blanc Tunnel to the sight of the dormant vineyards, stone buildings and steep mountainsides of the Aosta Valley. It’s such a familiar area now that we dont really need the sat nav, we knew where we were going. Avoiding the toll road we headed towards Pre Saint Dider and then up the mountain road to La Thuile.

La Thuile Sosta Camper

As with many of the places we’ve visited on this year’s ski trip, we have been here before. This was our third visit and we had it sussed now. Turning right on entry to the village took us into what looks like a car park, the one-way road through the car park delivered us easily to the sosta. On arrival we set ourselves up and I went back to the many notices at the entrance to the sosta to get the phone number for the manager. It wasn’t needed though, as I was putting the number in my phone he chugged up in his little Piaggio Porter truck. The CCTV had picked up our arrival and he happened to be available to check us in. I said I’d like to stay for 5 nights and he looked at me incredulously, “the weather is not good, are you sure?” he asked. He still wasn’t convinced when I said yes and would only take payment for three nights. It made me chuckle three days later when we extended our stay and he joked that we couldn’t make our minds up.

You can see more details about the sosta from our 2023 post, it hasn’t changed at all and doesn’t need to, it has everything we need.

A gloomy day

It was true that the weather wasn’t great. Saturday was wet and windy. Paul rested his aches and pains while I went for a walk along the river in the sleety showers. Then we had a nice relaxing afternoon watching the six nations.

River walk between the showers

Unexpected sunshine

The following day was forecast to be more of the same so we didn’t plan much, but we woke to blue skies and decided we might as well make the most of an unexpectedly good morning and rushed around getting ourselves up and out as soon as possible. As it was Sunday there were plenty of other people doing the same and we got in some good long runs on fresh snow, making it down from the top to the village level several times.

Sunny views of Mont Blanc from the slopes

That evening the aire emptied of it’s Italian weekend visitors and left just a handful of foreign vans. A new van opposite us was being used by an Intersport ski instructor, not the same person we had met in 2023. Intersport is a company that runs British school ski trips and uses mostly British instructors. I felt for our fellow resident as she was up and away early and didn’t get back until after 6pm. It must be a long tiring day herding children around the slopes.

Final Days in La Thuile

That evening we were back to wet and windy weather for the next 24 hours so I decided to work Monday and take Tuesday morning off. Tuesday is usually my only set working day of the week and I felt a little naughty taking the morning off to ski, but at this end of the season it’s all about taking the opportunities when they arise.. We popped over to La Rosiere first thing but the French slopes were way too warm and sunny, already getting slushy by 10am, so we headed back to enjoy the better snow in the Italian sector. I got a couple of final runs in while Paul rested and chatted to an 81 year old Italian skier who owns an apartment in the village and had been coming to La Thuile for 40 years. He was talking about the lack of snow and the increasing warmth over the years. We were just amazed that he was still skiing. Paul did his good deed for the day when he found his ID card under their bench and rushed over to the gondola to return it.

Lunch on the slopes

La Thuile History

I mentioned a bit about La Thuile’s mining history in our last post from thsi location. Walking around the village we found more evidence of the mining heritage. Many of them look sturdily built but are still falling into disrepair. Outside one was a picture of Mussolini visiting in congratulatory style.

More sinister are the prisoner of war camp buildings. It must have been an unforgiving place to be a POW hidden up a steep valley between the steep cliffs, living through harsh winters and forced to labour in the mines. There are notice boards explaining some of the history of the town but they, like the buildings, have seen better days.

Prisoner of war camp buildings