Mulattiere Reali del Gran Paradiso

Beneath the summits of Gran Paradiso runs a road network built for a royal family on the hunt. Between 1860 and 1900 the House of Savoy had roughly 325 kilometres of mule tracks laid out across these valleys, binding high-altitude hunting lodges. Much of the main ridge network remains recognisable today.

Why it matters

Most historic trails in the Alps carry goods or connect villages. Built to connect hunting lodges at around 2,000–2,200 metres, the tracks were engineered for the movement of the royal party and its pack animals. The main ridge kept a consistent gradient of roughly 8–10 per cent, wide enough for mules and carried across passes and steep slopes on dry-stone walls and paved sections. The network is also the physical thread of the park's own origin story: the hunting reserve created for it became, by donation, Italy's first national park. Their construction is part of the history of the protected landscape itself.

What to notice

The best-preserved stretches retain dry-stone walls and paved or pitched surfaces designed to shed water and withstand hoof traffic.

The long, even switchbacks maintained a steady gradient suited to riding and pack animals.

The tracks connected single-storey stone lodges, whose heavy stone-slab roofs sheltered rooms opening directly to the outside. Only two of the royal houses remain in park ownership today — Orvieille in Valsavarenche and the house at Gran Piano di Noasca in the Orco Valley — now repurposed for surveillance and research rather than royal hospitality.

Context and history

In 1856 Vittorio Emanuele II formalised these mountains as a royal hunting reserve and established a corps of specialised guards to protect the game, above all the ibex. Between 1860 and 1900, some 325 kilometres of mule tracks were built or adapted to connect five royal hunting lodges. Of these, about 150 kilometres formed a "spine" linking the royal houses across the passes, while roughly 175 kilometres of branches ran to wardens' huts and hunting posts.

Royal hunting ended in 1913. In 1920 Vittorio Emanuele III donated the reserve to the Italian state so that its ibex and chamois could be protected for the nation, and in 1922 the Gran Paradiso National Park was established — the first national park in Italy. The tracks passed from royal service to public heritage. Many of the secondary branches to lost hunting posts have faded over the past century.