Arboretum "Borna di Laou" - Collegiate of Saint-Gilles

It gives you the opportunity to see and learn about native and exotic botanical species by strolling quietly in one of the most scenic places in Verrès, at the beginning of the d’Ayas Valley. The arboretum can be reached on foot from Verrès, where it is better to leave the car, going up a short stretch of the regional road in the Ayas Valley. At the two entrances have been positioned some panels with the description of the area, which includes nine panoramic pitches, equipped with benches and waste baskets. The landscape visible from this site is extraordinarily vast: on the left the Verrès manor, built in the second half of the 1300s; to the north-east the Ayas Valley; to the north-west stands the majestic iron cross erected on Mount Saint-Gilles (thanks for the failure to destroy the country by the bombings of the Second World War); to the south-west and south-east the great Verrès plain and just beyond the Issogne castle. The varied vegetation can be recognized by means of special signs that indicate its botanical name, in addition to the Italian and French ones. The inhabitants of Verrès call this place, in patois (the local language) “Borna di Laou” or, in Piedmontese dialect, “Tampa del luf”, as it seems that in the area, until the end of 1800, there was a den inhabited by a wolf.