Heritage
Baroque pilgrimage with snowshoes
Updating : 02/03/2006
The idea of the baroque pathways route was born during the Albertville winter Olympics. This is in the nature of things since, no matter where they are held, the games are bound to develop cultural and heritage outreaches. In winter and with snowshoes, let's go tracking the baroque churches, its great!
If you stay in Val Thorens or in the Menuires, just for once, leave the skis at home and go hiking with snowshoes to discover the baroque churches in the Belleville valley.
Free shuttles commute between the high mountain resorts and Saint Martin de Belleville, so you have no excuse if you don't take advantage of them.
All the more so since the hike is not very difficult, the churches and other chapels are quite accessible and often situated beside the roads. The Chemins du Baroque Association, created during the Olympic Games, is now 14 years old and its organizers are very busy.
About 25 lecturer-guides operate the church tours but if you want to hike with snowshoes, a mountain guide, in this case Brigitte Ruff, takes the group to Saint Martin de Belleville. She is also a keen heritage fan and all her colleagues work in the same way.
If you have already participated in this kind of tour during the summer months, the exercise reveals itself to be both quite different and just as passionate in the winter. It proves also that snowshoe hiking is not only for following animal tracks in the snow. Everyone's tastes are catered for!
This kind of exercise can also be practised in Valloire in the Maurienne valley. There you can not only discover the beauty of the parish church, but also the habitat, the people and the ancestral agricultural practices.
In Sollières Bramans it is around the water theme, the history of torrential floods, and prehistoric human occupation, that the visit of the church is centred.
But what visitors like above all, is the exploration by night with flaming torches, with a guide of course. All the more since the visit, which lasts about 1 hour, very often ends with a local produce tasting session and a hot drink. Heritage lovers are not at the end of their discoveries, nor of the various ways of tackling the subject.
Practical
To know all about visits or about one day hiking programs, ask at the tourist agencies. More simply, all the info is gathered on http://savoie-hautesavoie.com/ website.
Snowshoe tour price is about 20 to 25 euros. It lasts around 2 hours.
Documentation
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