 The awesome peaks of Gran Paradiso National Park rise above the village of Aymavilles (left); The distinctive local costume of the Soana Valley (right) |
 If heaven is infinite, then it shouldn't have any sides at all. But what the Italians call the nearest thing to heaven - Gran Paradiso National Park - has enough sides to qualify as an earthly paradise.
To the north-west of the Park, the locals of the Aosta autonomous region are somewhat schizoid, finding it hard to decide whether they are really French or Italian. The people of the east are even stranger - true mountain folk, many of whom who still wear traditional costume and speak a Provençal French patois, as they drive their cowherds along the tortuously winding roads. And on both sides of the Park, it would not be a cliché to call the scenery totally awesome.
|
