Gran Paradiso
Italy'S First National Park, Created In 1922 From A Royal Hunting Reserve, Holding The Remnant Alpine Ibex Population From Which Every Ibex In The Alps Descends · Cogne, Aosta Valley
This was Italy's first national park, created in 1922 out of a royal hunting reserve, and the reason it exists at all is the ibex. By the early nineteenth century the alpine ibex had been shot out of the entire Alps except for a few dozen animals on these slopes, which survived because a king wanted something to hunt; every ibex now living anywhere in the Alps descends from that remnant. They are still here in thousands and they are genuinely easy to see, along with chamois, marmots and bearded vultures. The park runs up to just over four thousand metres at the summit that gives it its name, and it is arranged as a set of parallel valleys climbing south off the Aosta plain, each with a road up it that ends at a village and a footpath. Cogne is the usual base, with a wide flat meadow at Valnontey behind it and a botanical garden of alpine plants. There are no lifts and no resorts inside the park.
Via Bourgeois 34, Cogne, Aosta Valley, 11012, Italy
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED, and the park itself has none: it is open country with free access and no gate. What has hours is everything built: the visitor centres and the Paradisia botanical garden open in the summer season only, the mountain refuges run from roughly late June to mid-September and are shut the rest of the year, and the Cogne cross-country trails operate in winter. VALLEY ROADS CAN CLOSE IN SNOW. Check the season and the refuge bookings rather than an opening time.