Bard Fortress

The rock at Bard closes the Aosta Valley to a gap barely wide enough for road and river, and has been fortified since antiquity. In May 1800 Napoleon crossed the Great St Bernard with an army and was held up here by a garrison of around four hundred; the infantry slipped past on a path above, but the artillery had to be muffled with straw and dragged through the village at night under the guns. He ordered the fort destroyed. The Savoy rebuilt it larger between 1830 and 1838 in three tiers of batteries. Restored from 1996, it now holds museums of the Alps and glass lifts up the rock.

History

The gorge has been used for millennia to control the route between Italy and France. On 14 May 1800 a French army of 40,000 was stopped at Bard by 400 Austrian and Piedmontese soldiers, who held the pass for two weeks and spoiled Napoleon's plan for a surprise attack on the Po Valley; the present fort was built in the 19th century by the House of Savoy (Wikipedia, Fort Bard).

The main sights

• The three tiers - batteries stacked up the rock in the 1830s rebuild.
• The Napoleon story - the night passage of guns under the fortress.
• The Alpine museum - a large modern museum of mountain life and science.
• The glass lifts - panoramic lifts climbing the rock face.

When to go

April to October; the fortress opens year-round but with reduced winter hours and closes some Mondays. Exhibitions change through the year. Allow half a day.

Things to know

Almost everything standing is the nineteenth-century rebuild, not the fort Napoleon faced. The site is large with many levels. Some museums close between exhibitions.

Nearby

Fenis castle lies up the valley; Ivrea is south.

Key facts