Like most Roman cities Aoste was laid out on the rectangular parallelogram plan, an aspect which it still retains.
Aoste’s triumphal arch, its city gate and walls, and its ancient towers all lend a quaint aspect of mediævalism which the twentieth century—so far as it has gone—has entirely failed to contaminate.
For lovers of English church history it will be a pleasure to recall that Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury in the eleventh century, was born at Aoste. Another churchly memory at Aoste is a tablet inscribed with the particulars of the flight of Calvin from his refuge here in 1541.
Castle of Fénis
Saint Bernard, who has given his name to two neighbouring mountain passes and to a breed of dogs, was Archbishop of Aoste in his time. His perilous journeys in crossing the Alps, going and coming to and from his missions of good, led to his founding the celebrated hospice on the nearby mountain pass which bears his name. The convent of the Great St. Bernard is the highest habited point in Europe.
From Aoste to the Hospice of the Grand Saint Bernard is twenty-six kilometres, with a rise of nearly 2,000 metres and a fall of a like amount to Martigny in Switzerland. The percentage of rise is considerably greater than the route leading into France by the Little Saint Bernard, which falls short of the former by three hundred metres, but the road is rather better. By far the easiest route from Turin into France is via the Col de Mont Cenis to Modane; but a modern automobile will not quarrel seriously with any of these save one or two short, ugly bits of from fifteen to seventeen per cent. They are pretty stiff; there’s no doubt about that, and with a motor whose horse power is enfeebled by the rarefied atmosphere at these elevations the driver is likely to meet with some surprises.