아르나드 최고의 워킹 & 하이킹 경로

Nice little square in the old village of Donnas

Beautiful bridge connecting Hone to Bard. Magnificent view of the fort.

While traveling along the Via Francigena, on the stretch from Arnad to Bard, you cross this characteristic three-arched pedestrian bridge. On the left orogr. area with a bench for rest.

The Roman road of the Gauls, built to connect Rome with the Rhone Valley, has in the Donnas section one of its most characteristic and spectacular points, carved out of the living rock over a length of 221 metres. In a place where in ancient times the rocky promontory plunged into the waters of the Dora, the Romans launched a real challenge to nature by carving out a living rock on which they could draw perfectly vertical walls and in whose bosom they cut the roadbed. Exciting and unusual, here the Via delle Gallie gives its best by offering the spectacle of a vaulted passage 4 metres thick, 4 metres high and almost 3 metres wide that eloquently illustrates the amount of rock removed and shows all the refinement of a road engineering never again achieved until viaducts and modern tunnels. In the Middle Ages it served as a gate to the village, which was closed at night; The other defences were of course: on one side the mountain and on the other the river. A fundamental road, much used over the centuries, as evidenced by the deep ruts left by the passage of carts and the wear of the walking surface that has been patched and repaired at various points over time. A little further on, on the right, we recognise the excellent profile of a milestone, also spared in the rocky bank, which informs us of the distance to Augusta Praetoria (the current city of Aosta): XXXVI miles (about 54 km).

The Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta has a simple but elegant architecture. The facade is decorated with fake brickwork patterns. Inside you will find traces of decorative paintings, including a pancaked female figure and a wild man with a hairy body swinging a stick.

The parish of Bard was officially established on 24 January 1775 by a decree of the bishop. The church, dedicated to the Assumption of Mary, dates from 1868 and is probably the result of the reconstruction of an earlier, much older church. This original church was probably contemporary with the beautiful Romanesque bell tower, which dates back to the 12th and 13th centuries.

Since the 14th century, the building was known as the residence of the nobles of Jardanis. In the 18th century, the building was renovated by the then owners, Nicoles. The plasterwork on the facade still shows the marks of projectiles from the 19th century, when the city gate here, known as the Courlét, was demolished on Napoleon's orders.

The origin of this bridge is uncertain, but it was probably built in Roman times. The first documents mentioning this bridge date from the second half of the 13th century. From 1272 onwards, the bridge was called Hôhne Bridge or Bard Bridge in Latin and then in Old French. Apart from its history, the bridge is a beautiful photo point of Fort Bard.