Travel Guide Sacra Di San Michele

At the entrance to the Val Susa stands this magnificent monastery perched on a rocky outcrop. A visit not to be missed. Inhabited since prehistoric times, fortified by the Celts, then by the Ligurian kings, the place became a castrum under the Roman Empire, a strategic military fortification. Taken by the Lombards in 569 during the barbarian invasions, it was conquered by the Saracens in 888. Around the year 1000, Count Hugues de Montboissier, a rich lord of Auvergne, went to Rome to ask the Pope for a pardon. The Pope gave him the choice between seven years of exile or the construction of an abbey. The abbey was built and entrusted to five Benedictine monks