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Courmayeur
Courmayeur (; Valdôtain: ) is a town and ''comune'' in northern Italy, in the autonomous region of Aosta Valley. History The toponym ''Courmayeur'' has been mentioned as ''Curia majori'' (1233–1381), ''Corte Maggiore'' (1620), ''Cormoyeu'' (1648), ''Cormaior'' (1680), ''Cormaior'' (Vissher, 1695), ''Cormaggior'' (L'Isle, 1707), ''Cormaior'' (Stagnoni, 1772) and ''Cormaieur'' (Martinel, 1799). The present toponym was first confirmed by Édouard Aubert (''La Vallée d'Aoste'', 1860), Joseph-Marie Henry (''Histoire populaire de la Vallée d'Aoste'', 1929) and Amé Gorret (''Guide de la Vallée d'Aoste'', 1877). It became a popular tourist destination when alpinism arose, thanks to its proximity to Mont Blanc. Under the Fascist regime and its "Italianist" rule, the town was briefly renamed ''Cormaiore''. Courmayeur was reestablished in 1948 alongside all other French toponyms in the Aosta Valley. The Mont Blanc Tunnel, connecting Courmayeur with Chamonix, opened in 1965, and pro ...
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Mont Blanc Massif
The Mont Blanc massif (french: Massif du Mont-Blanc; it, Massiccio del Monte Bianco) is a mountain range in the Alps, located mostly in France and Italy, but also straddling Switzerland at its northeastern end. It contains eleven major independent summits, each over in height. It is named after Mont Blanc (), the highest point in western Europe and the European Union. Because of its considerable overall altitude, a large proportion of the massif is covered by glaciers, which include the Mer de Glace and the Miage Glacierthe longest glaciers in France and Italy, respectively. The massif forms a watershed between the vast catchments of the rivers Rhône and Po, and a tripoint between France, Italy and Switzerland; it also marks the border between two climate regions by separating the northern and western Alps from the southern Alps. The mountains of the massif consist mostly of granite and gneiss rocks and at high altitudes the vegetation is an arctic-alpine flora. The val ...
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Mont Blanc
Mont Blanc (french: Mont Blanc ; it, Monte Bianco , both meaning "white mountain") is the highest mountain in the Alps and Western Europe, rising above sea level. It is the second-most prominent mountain in Europe, after Mount Elbrus, and it is the eleventh most prominent mountain summit in the world. It gives its name to the Mont Blanc massif which straddles parts of France, Italy and Switzerland. Mont Blanc's summit lies on the watershed line between the valleys of Ferret and Veny in Italy, and the valleys of Montjoie, and Arve in France. Ownership of the summit area has long been a subject of dispute between France and Italy. The Mont Blanc massif is popular for outdoor activities like hiking, climbing, trail running and winter sports like skiing, and snowboarding. The most popular climbing route to the summit of Mont Blanc is the Goûter Route, which typically takes two days. The three towns and their communes which surround Mont Blanc are Courmayeur in Aosta Valle ...
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Skyway Monte Bianco
Skyway Monte Bianco is a cable car in the Italian Alps, linking the town of Courmayeur with Pointe Helbronner on the southern side of the Mont Blanc massif. Taking over three years to construct, it opened in 2015 at a cost of 110 million euros, and is considered to be the world's most expensive cable car installation. Facilities From the cablecar base station at Entrèves (at an altitude of 1,300 meters above sea level), the Skyway Monte Bianco rises to a mid-way station at Pavillon Du Mont-Frety at an altitude of 2,173 meters. It takes six minutes to reach this point, during which time the 80-person cabin makes one complete rotation, giving visitors all-round views into the Aosta valley and along both Val Veny and Val Ferret, as well as improved access to the Italian side of the Mont Blanc massif and a link via the Vallée Blanche Aerial Tramway to the Aiguille du Midi, from where a separate cable car descends to the town of Chamonix in France. The half-way station of the Pav ...
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Alpine Botanical Garden Saussurea
The alpine botanical garden Saussurea ( it, Giardino Botanico Alpino Saussurea, french: Jardin botanique alpin Saussurea) is the highest alpine botanical garden in Europe, at 2,173 metres above sea level. It is located in Courmayeur, Aosta Valley, Italy. The Saussurea garden is one of the four alpine botanical gardens in the Aosta Valley, and its 7,000 square metres contain the typical alpine flora of Mont Blanc. Its name comes from Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who made the first known ascent of Mont Blanc in 1786, and from whom the flower Saussurea alpina also takes its name. It is open from June to September. The Territory The garden is situated on a high ridge south of Mont Blanc, and contains a rockery, alpine pasture, talus slopes, and wetlands. Snow covers the area for 8 to 9 months per year, to a depth of 3–4 metres, disappearing in late June. Plants are identified by a card with family name, gender, species, Italian name, and country of origin. The Saussurea garden ...
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Torino Hut
The Torino Hut ( it, Rifugio Torino; French: ''Refuge Turin'') is a high mountain refuge in the Alps in northwestern Italy. Located near the border with France, it is about southwest of Mont Dolent, the tripoint with Switzerland. The refuge is in the Mont Blanc massif above the town of Courmayeur in the Aosta Valley, Italy. It can be most easily accessed from the Italian side by the Skyway Monte Bianco cable car from La Palud in Courmayeur, with a change at the Pavilion du Mont Fréty. It can also be reached from Chamonix via the Aiguille du Midi, either by cable car which crosses the massif, or by a long crossing of the Glacier du Gèant. The refuge lies nearly directly above the Mont Blanc Tunnel, which passes deep underground, and connects Courmayer to Chamonix. Description The original hut was built by the Turin section of the Italian Alpine Club in 1898, near the cable car station. Over time, the refuge was enlarged several times, and today accommodates 38 guests. It i ...
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Mont Blanc Tunnel
The Mont Blanc Tunnel is a highway tunnel between France and Italy, under the Mont Blanc mountain in the Alps. It links Chamonix, Haute-Savoie, France with Courmayeur, Aosta Valley, Italy, via the French Route Nationale 205 and the Italian Traforo T1 (forming the European route E25), in particular the motorways serving Geneva ( A40 of France) and Turin ( A5 of Italy). The passageway is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes, particularly for Italy, which relies on this tunnel for transporting as much as one-third of its freight to northern Europe. It reduces the route from France to Turin by and to Milan by . Northeast of Mont Blanc's summit, the tunnel is about southwest of the tripoint with Switzerland, near Mont Dolent. The agreement between France and Italy on building a tunnel was signed in 1949. Two operating companies were founded, each responsible for one half of the tunnel: the French ''Autoroutes et tunnel du Mont-Blanc'' (ATMB), founded on 30 April 1958, ...
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Pointe Helbronner
Pointe Helbronner () is a mountain in the Mont Blanc massif in the Graian Alps on the watershed between France and Italy. The peak, which used to be a mere geodetic reference point, was named after Paul Helbronner, a French '' polytechnicien'', alpinist and geodesist who pioneered cartography of the French Alps. Pointe Helbronner is served on the Italian side by the Skyway Monte Bianco, a cable car from La Palud, a village north of the town of Courmayeur in the Aosta Valley. Pointe Helbronner is also served by the Vallee Blanche Aerial Tramway, which crosses from the peak to the nearby peak of Aiguille du Midi in France—a peak-to-peak distance of . This, in turn, gives access to the French Téléphérique de l'Aiguille du Midi, the cable car connecting Aiguille du Midi to the French village of Chamonix, Courmayeur's sister "city". The Skyway Monte Bianco station platform on Pointe Helbronner offers a remarkable view over the Aosta Valley and the Piedmont region. The ...
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Chamonix
Chamonix-Mont-Blanc ( frp, Chamôni), more commonly known as Chamonix, is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of southeastern France. It was the site of the first Winter Olympics in 1924. In 2019, it had a population of 8,640. Situated to the north of Mont Blanc, between the peaks of the Aiguilles Rouges and the notable Aiguille du Midi, Chamonix is one of the oldest ski resorts in France. The Chamonix commune is popular with skiers and mountain enthusiasts. Via the cable car lift to the Aiguille du Midi it is possible to access the off-piste (backcountry) ski run of the ''Vallée Blanche''. Name The name Campum munitum, meaning fortified plain or field, had been used as early as 1091. By 1283 the name had been abbreviated to a similar form to the modern Chamonis. Other forms through the ages include Chamouny in 1581, Chamony in 1652, Chamouni in 1786, and the particular spelling Chamonix from 1793. Status Chamonix is the fourth-largest ...
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Aiguille Du Midi
The Aiguille du Midi () is a mountain in the Mont Blanc massif within the French Alps. It is a popular tourist destination and can be directly accessed by cable car from Chamonix that takes visitors close to Mont Blanc. Cable car The idea for a cable car to the summit, the ''Téléphérique de l'Aiguille du Midi'', was originally proposed around 1909, but did not come into operation until 1955 when it held the title of the world's highest cable car for about two decades. It still holds the record as the highest vertical ascent cable car in the world, from . There are two sections: from Chamonix to ''Plan de l'Aiguille'' at and then directly, without any support pillar, to the upper station at 3,777 m (the building contains an elevator to the summit). The span of the second section is measured directly, but only measured horizontally. Thus it remains the second longest span width, measured directly. The cable car travels from Chamonix to the top of the Aiguille du Midi – ...
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Dora Baltea
Dora Baltea () or Doire Baltée () is a river in northwestern Italy. It is a left-hand tributary of the Po and is about long. Name The river's Latin name was ''Duria maior'', ''Duria Baltica'' or ''Duria Bautica''. Strabo called it Δουριας (''Dourias'') in Greek. The name "Duria" is from the Celtic root *''dubr-'' ("flow"), found in many European river names such as Douro / Duero; it derives from Proto-Indo-European *''dʰew-'' ("flow"). The second part may derive from the Illyrian root *''balta'' ("‘swamp, marsh, white clay"). In the local languages, the river is called , frp, label= Valdôtain, Djouiye; pms, Deura Bàotia. Geography It originates by Mont Blanc as the confluence of the Dora di Ferret, fed by the Pré de Bar Glacier in Val Ferret, and the Dora di Veny, fed by the Miage Glacier and Brenva Glacier in Val Veny. As it crosses the Aosta Valley, the Dora Baltea flows through the city of Aosta (where the Buthier runs into it) and near all the main ...
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Fascist Regime
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a (German: “people’s community”), in which individual interests would be subordinated to the good of the nation" characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Fascism rose to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before spreading to other European countries, most notably Germany. Fascism also had adherents outside of Europe. Opposed to anarchism, democracy, pluralism, liberalism ...
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