Montvalezan community consists of 44 hamlets and 14 chapels

Montvalezan community is located in the heart of the High Tarentaise mountains, in Savoy department. It spans on the southern side over 2590 hectares, from 850m to 2900m. Its territory is part of La Vanoise National Park outskirts. The commune consists of 44 hamlets, only 34 of them are inhabited. It has a population of 692 inhabitants. There are 11000 beds intended for tourists in La Rosière. For many years and expecially on Sundays, the liveliest village was the county town, where a parish building complex is : a tower, a church and a presbytery. The tower, built in 1674, is classified as Historic Monument. It was an outbuilding of the Petit-Saint-Bernard Hospice, attended at times by canons. Saint Jean-Baptiste church was consecrated in 1688 during the expansion period of baroque art in High Tarentaise. It is now open to the public every Thursday from 4PM till 6PM in July and August.

Hamlets

Wood, stones and "lauzes" - schist roof slates - are the basics of traditional Savoyard architecture. Lauzes are extracted from the 2300m high quarry, summer time only, then carried on foot to the construction sites. The many hamlets along "La Route des villages" are the best evidence of this traditional architecture. In every village, houses built either on a ledge or against the hillside are tightly packed around a small rustic chapel. Sturdy, practical and harmonious, they are well adapted to the harshness of the alpine weather. Thick dry stone walls are capped by a robust wooden frame that can bear the heavy weight of roof slabs and snow. Designed at first for agricultural purposes, traditional dwellings have been restored and rearranged to allow permanent, seasonal and touristic living.

Chapels

The 14 chapels of Montvalezan commune are a recognized heritage, witness of the past. Most of them built during the 17th century, or even before, they were constructed by our ancestors, to thank for a blessing, to express their faith or to tell about their lives, their suffering and their hopes. These secondary places of worship (churches being the primary ones) are located in the village's centre.

Each of these 14 chapels is dedicated to a saint : named after a donor, or a well-known or local saint :

The Chapel Association

Since 1993, this association restores all chapels in collaboration with elected representatives. Works are undergone by volunteers, or thanks to donations and local subsidies by paid craftsmen.

Coup de coeur : Chatelard's chapel

This chapel towers over the High Tarentaise valley at an altitude of 1500m in the village of Chatelard (whose etymology would be "castellarium" : a concentration of houses around a castle).

The small chapel that existed in 1633 was rebuilt in 1869, enhanced and decorated in 1914. It suffered from bombings in 1944, so it was again restored. Like most of churches/chapels on high ground, it is mainly dedicated to Saint-Michel.

Its steeple keeps the oldest bell of the commune, it was melted in 1559 and moved from Montvalezan to Châtelard in order to stay beyond revolutionary troops' reach. Even though processions, blessings, mess and weddings no longer take place in it, the chapel's Angelus bell still sets the pace of Montvalezan inhabitants.