Aosta
Roman Colony Of Augusta Praetoria Founded In 25 BC, Retaining Its Complete Circuit Of Walls, The Arch Of Augustus, The Porta Praetoria, The Theatre And The Cryptoporticus · Aosta, Aosta Valley
A Roman colony founded in 25 BC at the junction of the two passes into Gaul, laid out as a rectangle of walls with a street grid inside it, and still sitting inside that rectangle two thousand years later with the alpine peaks closing every view. The walls survive almost entirely. So does the triumphal arch Augustus put up outside them, the Porta Praetoria with its double gateway and the courtyard between, the theatre's tall facade wall standing to about twenty-two metres, and a cryptoporticus under the forum that is one of the strangest Roman spaces in Italy: a double vaulted gallery running underground on three sides of a square, lit by slots, and nobody is certain what it was for. The collegiate church of Sant'Orso has an eleventh-century fresco cycle hidden in its roof space, reached by a stair most visitors never find. Italians call the town the Rome of the Alps and mean it literally.
Piazza Chanoux, Aosta, Aosta Valley, 11100, Italy
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The structure: the walls, the Arch of Augustus and the Porta Praetoria are in the open street and never close. The Roman theatre and the cryptoporticus keep regional site hours with a midday closure in some seasons and much shorter winter opening. THE SANT'ORSO ROOF FRESCOES ARE ON RESTRICTED, CAPPED ACCESS and are not always available. The cathedral treasury keeps its own hours. The Fiera di Sant'Orso occupies the town on 30 and 31 January. Confirm the frescoes before counting on them.