Italy to Santiago II Part 1: Via Domitia Day 11: Exilles - Oulx

 Senza salite non ci sarebbero discese 

(What doesn't go up, can't come down)

- Anonymous 

We began to go up as soon as we left Exilles, fortified by Gabriella's amazing breakfast of toast with honey from her husband's bees and homemade carrot cake. B&B Gabriella is the perfect place to stop overnight in Exilles, with two large double rooms - ours even had a washing machine in the bathroom. We ran our things through the rapid cycle and draped them over the radiators to dry - Gabriella had turned on the heating for us softies from lower elevations, though she doesn't use it herself until later in the fall.

We followed a winding and rocky road up to the fort of Sapè, gaining 800 metres of elevation in six kilometres, passing through chestnut groves gradually blending into beech and conifers as we climbed higher.

Leaving Exilles in a light rain

Fort Sapè

At the top, we paused for a break on a bench below Forte Sapè. Then we entered the Gran Bosco di Salbertrand nature park and followed a section of the Sentiero dei Franchi, a 70 kilometre hiking trail through the mountains between Oulx and the Sacra di San Michele. It follows the route taken by Charlemagne with his troops in 773 to get around the Longobard army in the valley below, so that he could swoop down on them from above and take them by surprise at Chiusa di San Michele. This route offers a "wilder" and more challenging alternative to the Via Francigena route that we have been walking over the past few days, at a higher elevation - for experienced hikers with adequate gear! 

There's snow in them thar hills!

We walked the easier terminal section of the Sentiero dei Franchi into Oulx. This section of the trail offers a good opportunity to view the two faces of the Susa Valley: look one way, up the mountain slope, and all you see is pristine pine forest. Look the other way, down into the valley, and you see the motorway, and the sprawling construction sites where the new rapid railway line is being built. We could hear the loud clanging of heavy-duty machinery as we walked through what would otherwise have been a silent forest. We passed above another site which appeared to be a vast treatment facility for gravel, perhaps generated in the digging of the tunnels. 

The narrow trail clung to the side of the hill before descending into Gad, a picturesque little village of stone houses, and joining a wider road leading past a shopping centre and into Oulx. B&B Alba Serena is on the outskirts of the town, so we stopped to check in and take a rest before heading into the town centre. 

The newer, lower part of Oulx is where all the businesses are - where we could find the tourist information office, a pharmacy and a takeout pizza place. Above it is the old town, a single street lined with 17th-century homes, culminating in the church at the top of the town.

B&B Alba Serena 

Exilles - Oulx 18 km

+1000 metre elevation gain