In and around Aosta
AOSTA is used to tourists. Until recently, it was the capital of a duty-free area and many French, Swiss and Italians constantly came here for cheap alcohol. Along the main street you can still see baskets full of liqueurs and vermouths, but after a significant increase in prices, they ceased to be a force attracting tourists to the city.
Aosta was founded by the Romans in the year 25 BC., after selling at the slave market a tribe previously living here. There was a Roman military camp here, from which it is difficult to expect magnificent buildings and from this era there is really little left. More has survived from medieval Aosta, but the main attraction of the city are not monuments, and its location. Aosta, surrounded by the Alps and located not far from the beautiful valleys of the Gran Paradiso National Park.near the ski resorts of Mont Blanc and the castles scattered throughout the valley, is an ideal starting point for trips to the north-eastern region of Italy.
City
In the city center lies Piazza E, rich in café gardens. Chanoux. To the east of it leads Via Porta Pretoriana, constituting the axis of the city and the main commercial artery. Its extension is Via Sant'Anzelmo. In the middle of the length of this street rises one of the most magnificent monuments in the city. It is consisting of two three-span parts of Porta Praetoria. It was once the main gate to Roman Aosta.. The space between its two parts was intended for a post for soldiers, Proofing, who enters the city. In the Middle Ages, one of the local noble families moved into a tower built especially for this purpose above the gate.. Currently, the tower sometimes serves as a showroom.
To the north of the gate are other remains of the Roman era. From Teatro Romano (codz. 9.30-12.00 and 14.30-18.30; in winter closed at 16.30) survivor impressive, measuring 22 meters high and having a part of the four-storey façade finished with arches, and the lower parts of the auditorium (lat. cavea). Therefore, summer theatrical performances are no longer held there, but on the platform above the theater. The medieval Torre Fromage is also nearby, which currently serves as an exhibition hall.
Behind the rather uninteresting façade of the Church of Sant'Orso, located outside the city walls, to the side of Via Sant'Anzelmo, there are a series of frescoes from the tenth century, invisible from the floor level, and only from specially suspended under the vault sidewalks. However, only the sacristy has access to the frescoes. If there is none, you have to be content with watching the fifteenth-century stalls, on which a whole galaxy of saints and monks is carved, and various animal species, from bats to monkeys. On the capitals of the columns placed at the height of man in the Romanesque cloisters there are even more interesting sculptures – most of them scenes from the life of Christ, in which donkeys and sheep play a disproportionately large role.
The end of the street marks Arco di Augusto. It was erected in the year 25 p.n.e. on the occasion of the removal of this territory from the local Salassi tribe and its annexation to Rome. In honor of Emperor Augustus, the new city was named Augusta Praetoria (Aosta is the Italian version of Augusta). Despite covering the arch with an ugly eighteenth-century roof and letting go of car traffic from both sides of it, it still looks quite impressive and dignified, especially against the background of high peaks visible in the distance. Behind the gap, a single-span Roman bridge has also been preserved., connecting the banks of the buthier riverbed, which is now dry.
Returning to the center, it is necessary to mention one more Roman monument. This is located under the former forum, vaulted passage of unknown purpose. This transition today is confusingly called the Forum (in summer codz. 10.00-12.00 and 14.30-18.00, in winter every. 10.00-12.00 and 14.30-16.30).
Neighboring Cattedrale looks unpromising from the outside, but it has an interesting gothic décor. Its stalls are carved even more fancifully than in Sant'Orso, and among the saints you can see a mermaid, lion and snail. Under the floor are visible the remains of the fourteenth-century baptistery, and the mosaics on the floor of the presbytery depict two rivers symbolizing the earthly paradise and holding the sun and moon in hand, surrounded by the symbols of the months of Christ. In the church museum there are other treasures: inlaid with gold, silver and precious stones reliquaries and equally richly decorated chalices, crucifixes and caskets for relics.