Angrogna

The Angrogna Valley, secondary branch toward the north of Val Pellice, is the heart of the Valdese culture. The village is the main center of the whole valley, wide and woody, owes its name to the river Engréunha, flowing through it from the small lake of Sella Vecchia until Pellice, downstream of the bridge of Appiotti, in Torre Pellice. The valley has numerous places of naturalistic, historical and cultural landscape, including the paths that connect the ancient hamlets, among which the Trail of the partisans and the path to the mountain pastures of Sella Vecchia and Crioulira.

Inside the homonymous valley we also find a suggestive village abandoned, Barma Mounastira. We are faced with a balma (from the Ligurian term indicating the rocks, caves or shelters under the rock) not just let us embark on the path toward the ancient stone village, now abandoned, that preserves however still in all its authentic charm. A place where time seems to have stopped, where all still exudes the hard life of the mountain which shaped the inhabitants. The village is unusual because it leaned against the rock that also covers completely. There are numerous in these valleys places called barma or Balma, with the meaning of rock jutting and sometimes almost cave; places used in the past as a shelter from the weather for people and animals. Often, as in this place, the shelter has become house inhabited until a few decades ago, then abandoned and now restored. The constructive choice also provides an interesting conditioning environments that, especially in winter, receive heat from the rock behind. The system was used in a diffused way: Barma Mounastira ne is a significant example. The long row of houses abandoned anciently belonged to one of the families Mounastìe, historic valdese family which can be traced since 1232. Between the towns of greenhouses Malan, Chiot, Angrogna and Pradeltorno (and many other villages perched on the slopes of the valley), there are many signs that the culture, history and traditions the Waldensians have left the territory. Starting from the Monument of Chanforan in Serre, reminiscent of an important assembly of beard, medieval preachers Waldensians, held in the Sixteenth Century. In our path toward Barma Mounastira we also encounter numerous churches and temples, and the so-called College of beard, a small complex of houses in which the legend wants you were the preachers Waldensians.

Written stones
the use of engraved on the stone of the signs that retain the memory of the place and of those who have inhabited it is ancient of millennia. Cups, symbols or more simply piquere testify that the zone of Pradeltorno was inhabited in ancient times and the large number of cuts of sacred character makes it a sort of sanctuary.

Eigardoou
The Place offers a magnificent panoramic view. Was on several occasions a lookout point from which the Waldensians once embarked to Pradeltorno saw reaching the soldataglie of the Duke of Savoy who, after having plundered and burned their possessions were for massacrarli. The Rocciaglie were place of extreme defense victorious in the persecutions of 1484 and 1555, but nothing could against the overwhelming the attacking forces in 1686.

Banhòou Barma and d' l'ours
after 8 September 1943 in this location is formed the partisan bands. In Val Pellice the houses of Banhòou became seat of collection and control. In the neighboring house under the Barma d ' l'ours was printed mimeograph the first newspaper clandestine free The Pioneer. Now the house to Banhòou was rebuilt. Called Cà d' la pais (House of Peace), today welcomes groups of young Europeans in a fraternal embrace.