Historic Mountain Routes | Le Vie del Colombardo

Colombardo is a wide grassy hill that connects the Susa Valley with the Viù Valley, on one side the municipality of Condove and on the other that of Lemie. Given its modest altitude (1898 m.), it has always represented an easy and busy route for connections and exchanges for a variety of economic, social and cultural reasons.

Yesterday as today important for the local pastoral economy on both sides of the valley, in 1705 the area saw the construction by a wealthy businessman from Lemie, a certain Giovanni Battista Giorgis, of a votive pillar which - from the first small chapel - over the decades grew to the complex architecture of today's Sanctuary of the Madonna degli Angeli, which has always been a destination for pilgrims and processions from the parishes of the neighbouring villages and the two valleys.

The site was a bone of contention between the communities of Mocchie and Lemie and in 1837 also the scene of a shooting during the religious festival in August.

The hike can start from the centre of Condove (1,500 m altitude difference) but also higher up, from the hamlet of Prato Botrile (2½ h ascent), or in the opposite direction from Lemie, whose original path is now a carriage road.From Condove, another consortium road from June to October also makes it possible to reach Colombardo by car/off-road motorbike.

Two festivals are held there every year: the second Sunday in July and the first Sunday in August.