Departure point:
Brig, Switzerland.
How to get there:
By train: Domodossola Station (IT) and Brig (CH), Ferrovie dello Stato. Timetables: www.trenitalia.com; www.ffs.ch
By bus: Postbus Switzerland Ltd, Domodossola – Brig. Timetables: www.autopostale.ch
By car: A26 motorway to Gravellona Toce, then SS33 Sempione, exit Domodossola. Then you reach the Vigezzina railroad and through the pedestrian subway you arrive at Domodossola Station, Ferrovia dello Stato.
General Description:
It is one of the 12 Cultural Itineraries of national interest of Switzerland. Its importance has been noticed early in the seventieth Century by the merchant Prince Kaspar Jodock Stockalper, the “King of Simplon”, who, for commercial reasons, built an extended mule track that can be crossed today in parts along the itinerary. Following the same itinerary, in 1805 Napoleon built the first man-made road in the Alps to move his armies and cannons through the Simplon Pass. From the Monscera Pass there was instead an old communication and trade road between the Ossola Valley and the Canton of Valais, used by the Valais troops that invaded on several occasions the Ossola and through which in 1275 Pope Gregory X travelled returning from the Council of Lyon.
The route:
The Stockalper Route in its completeness is represented by the union of the "Stockalperweg", that from the Stockalper Palace of Brig goes up to the Simplon Pass and down to Gondo through the Monscera route, starting from the Sacro Monte Calvario of Domodossola, where the evidence of the presence of Baron Stockalper is the house in which he lived and a statue in the Paradise Chapel, the route then goes up the Bognanco Valley to the Monscera Pass and down through the Zwischbergental, up to Gondo. Along the itinerary it is possible to visit the Sacro Monte Calvario di Domodossola (Unesco World Heritage), the Simplon Eco-Museum (Stockalper Palace in Brig, the renovated Alte Gasthof “Old Inn” in Simplon Village, Napoleon barracks, the fort in Gondo Gorge and the Gold Museum in Gondo), and also the Napoleonic Hospiz of Simplon run today by the Bernardine Monks.
Useful information:
Itinerary indicated as trail D00 in Italy and with brown trail “Stoclaperweg” and number 90 in Switzerland.
Sacred Mounts of Piedmont and Lombardy, Unesco World Heritage list: www.sacrimonti.net; http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1068
Reserve of Sacro Monte Calvario di Domodossola: www.sacromontedomodossola.it
Where to eat:
Ristorante Fletschhorn Alte Simplonstrasse 2, 3901 Simplon Dorf (CH) http://www.hotelfletschhorn.ch
Rifugio Gattascosa, Alpe Gattascosa – 28842 Bognanco VB, (IT) tel. mob. +39 328 3151669
Circolo di Monteossolano Fraz. Monteossolano 28845 Domodossola VB, (IT) tel. +39 335 6749402
