Aosta (UK: , US: , Italian: [aˈɔsta] ; French: Aoste [ɔst],) is the principal city of the Aosta Valley, a bilingual region in the Italian Alps, 110 km (68 mi) north-northwest of Turin. It is situated near the Italian entrance of the Mont Blanc Tunnel, at the confluence of the Buthier and the Dora Baltea, and at the junction of the Great and Little St Bernard Pass routes.
It can be difficult finding a good restaurant open between 2 pm and 7 pm in Aosta. If you want to eat early, it'll be pizza, kebabs or similar fast food.
All restaurants offer a fixed price menu (menu turistico / menu a prezzo fisso) which is not very exciting but is good if you're watching the euros. Keep your receipt, the police sometimes check.
Lots of local specialities - look for the word "Valdostana" or "Valdôtaine" in the names of dishes. Carbonade is ground beef meat roasted in red wine. Fontina cheese is made locally. Tegole are sweet thin biscuits.
Notable local wines include the white Blanc de Morgex et La Salle. Genepy is a strong olive-coloured liqueur, herbal and sweeter than absinthe, usually drunk neat.
Aosta is a good place to stock up on local food products and wines.
By plane: the nearest commercial airport is Turin TRN, with flights across Europe and within Italy. Aosta can also be reached from the Milan / Bergamo airports, and from Geneva GVA via the Mont Blanc Tunnel. Aosta's own airport handles private aviation but is too small and hemmed in by mountains for regular flights.
By train: Trains run hourly to Ivrea, 80 mins. These connect immediately with trains to Turin Porta Susa and may be shown on timetables and displays as through trains, but usually it's a change. For Milan and elsewhere in Italy, take the train towards Turin but change at Chivasso. Aosta is now the terminus of the line up the valley - trains no longer run further up to Pré-Saint-Didier. is just south of town centre.
By bus: three Savda buses per day link Aosta with Turin Porta Susa and Porta Nuova, taking two hours. Two of them extend west to Pré-Saint-Didier and Courmayeur.
By car: The main road up the valley is Autoroute A5 (toll) from Turin, with a crosslink to A4 from Milan. It bypasses town to the south and continues west up the valley (mostly in tunnel) to Pré-Saint-Didier (turn-off for Little St Bernard pass, summer only, via La Thuile to Bourg-Saint-Maurice in France) and Courmayeur, where it enters the Mont Blanc tunnel to Chamonix in France.
The old valley road SS26 skirts Aosta to the north, with SS27 branching north to climb the Great Saint Bernard pass and tunnel (open year-round) to Martigny in Switzerland.
Aosta is a small town and, for the tourist, everything can be easily visited on foot.
The bottom for Pila ski resort is at Charvensod, 500 m south of Aosta railway station. A shuttle bus hairpins up the hill in the evenings when the cable-car isn't running.
