Les Fiéry Li Fiére

It was not an ancient village, but rather, during the Middle Ages, an important crossroads where the route from Aosta through the Col de Joux arrived from the south, the route to Valais through Montservin (today the Theodul Pass) came from the west, and the long and complex route to Novara and Milan via the Bettaforcaz Pass, Gressoney, the Valdobbia Pass, Valvogna, Riva Valdobbia, and Valsesia came from the east.

A true “international” trade route passed through this place, a mule track heavily traveled between the 14th and 17th centuries.

An oven, a mill, and a chapel were the few services of this small settlement before it experienced the golden age of mountaineering and mountain tourism. Les Fiéry became well known with the construction, in the mid-19th century, of Ayas’s first hotel, the Hôtel des Cimes Blanches, on the initiative of the famous mountain guide Jean-Pierre Fosson. Later, his son Benjamin, also a guide, enlarged his house next to the hotel, transforming it into a new large hospitality structure named Hôtel Bellevue. Highly appreciated for its “modernity,” the Bellevue soon became a departure and resting point for mountaineers, but also a meeting place for the Turin and Milanese elite, a sort of circle for intellectuals, writers, and artists. Among those who stayed here were the composer Arturo Toscanini, the writers and poets Sem Benelli, Matilde Serao, Edmondo De Amicis, Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, Francesco Pastonchi, Guido Gozzano, as well as two queens of the House of Savoy, Margherita and Maria José.