The GPNP visitors centre - Valsavarenche
The Gran Paradiso National Park Visitors’ Centre at Valsavarenche presents different topics related to the life, survival, activity and presence of predators which inhabit the territory.
The visit concentrates particularly on the lynx and examines the rapid extinction of this animal in Europe and its revival thanks to a slow but steady resettlement which started in the 1970s.
How important is the range of senses to a predator in its daily search for food? How does the presence of the lynx influence the settlement of the chamoix within the Gran Paradiso National Park?
These are two of the many questions which the Centre tries to give a detailed answer to during the tour of the Centre in Valsavarenche, using sounds and images which help the visitor to examine the presence and the life of the predators in the Park.
Finally, the exhibition proposes four realistic settings showing the various habitats of big and small predators and their possible prey.
During its opening hours a professional Park Guide is available at the Centre to provide detailed and precise information.
Eun Cou – Bygone days
The Valsavarenche Visitor Centre is hosting the exhibition "EUN COU - Totza atò le man lo tèn passò" - "BYGONE DAYS—Hand-on experience of the past", dedicated to the experiences and testimony of the past, compared to our present day.
The topics being put forward (until June 2009) are mountain climbing and milk processing: a video presents the testimony of Primo Berthod, a mountain guide, and Velia Pariset, a farm woman, who speak about the differences between the past and the present in their work. Particular attention is paid to the objects and equipment proper to the work, and it is possible for visitors to have “hands-on experience” of the tools described in the testimony, and evaluate the differences between the objects used in former times and those in current use.