Valle Maira was once a living cultural landscape of villages, alpine pastures, fields and mule tracks. Until well into the twentieth century it was home mostly to mountain-farming families – hard, simple, self-sufficient lives.
From the 1950s everything changed:
People moved to the cities, farms were abandoned. Many villages fell into ruin – nature and silence returned.
But the story is not over:
In recent years walkers, nature lovers, artists and free spirits have begun to return. Some houses have been lovingly restored, old paths made passable again.
What is emerging is not mass tourism, but a fine balance: between past and future, between authenticity and reinterpretation.
👉 When you are here, you are moving through a landscape that holds memory – of work, endurance, loss and new life.
P.S.: Keep an eye out for old dry-stone walls, abandoned stone huts or overgrown terraces – they tell more than first meets the eye.