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One of Italy's most ambitious energy engineering projects, yet never fully exploited: landslides similar to those of Vajont were detected right from the initial tests, and the capacity was limited from the planned 70 million cubic meters to just 2 million (which is why the village of Fornet, re-emerged from the lake's waters, is still visible). Due to the dam's failure to utilize its full capacity, it was lowered by 52 meters between 2011 and 2015.

A small village located at the start of the Valgrisenche climb; interesting fact: this is the birthplace of Maurice Garin, winner of the first Tour de France.

Very irregular and decidedly challenging climb, especially in the initial kilometres which have steep gradients and, for over a kilometre, greater than 10%.

The last village in the valley surrounded by green alpine meadows

The climb winds through a majestic valley (personally my favorite), never reaching excessive gradients; it's long but pedalable, allowing you to fully enjoy the natural surroundings. Apart from the peak season, there's almost no traffic, although you might encounter a few campers, which can be annoying on the way down. If you tackle the climb during periods of the year when there aren't too many tourists, you might, like me, have pleasant encounters with ibex and chamois that have come down to road level.

View of the Alpine giant

After crossing the bridge over the Dora Baltea, State Road 26 now winds along a straight stretch with almost zero gradients, the perfect place to look up and enjoy the view of the highest mountain in Europe.

A typical Aosta Valley village nestled in the mountains, a crossroads for Colle San Carlo, the Piccolo San Bernardo, and Pré-Saint-Didier. A little trivia: it was here that, at the end of the Second World War, a partisan brigade and a small republican brigade, putting aside all hatred, jointly opposed De Gaulle's attempt to annex the Aosta Valley to France.