SlowAlp was born in Aosta Valley as a way to develop an original view of mountain tourism’s culture as an integrated project, with a new approach to this special environment and in relation to the values of alpine culture and civilization. Understanding the millennial culture of the mountain and of its inhabitants will give mountain lovers the opportunity to shift to a different point of view, away from today’s mainstream attitude.

SlowAlp plans to develop cultural projects based directly on alpine civilization  traditional models, in order to show an alternative to high-intensity exploitation of all natural resources. Nowadays everything, either material or immaterial, has to be used, in the context of forced globalization, dehumanizing and eliminating all opportunities of reflection and real contact with people and things: we strive instead for a slower pace, typical of mountain culture. Today, mountain too is prone to the pressure of homologation and environment exploitation, endangering not only its culture but also its value as an enriching element of everybody’s life. Our target is to transform Valpelline territory into a creative workshop and to impact positively on local tourism projects. Moreover, this concept could become a fruitful example for all mountain touristic areas, in order to improve investment allocation, for more sober and attentive initiatives. Learn to hike, live the mountain, live on the mountain; these experiences can bring forward a different rhythm, the value and meaning of exertion, in contrast with current society mainstream values in which strain, suffering and taking time have to be eliminated and replaced with exasperated life rhythms. In alpine culture, where everything is done complying to natural balance and its seasons, and everything has its own meaning and value, humanity was able to adapt to this extreme environment and to draw useful lessons from it, eventually allowing it to deeply master nature and integrate with it. Through this new approach, the mountain will be again that formative element, which used to shape, mentally and physically, generations of mountain lovers, which were then able to bring back to their original cities and families the “style” learnt on the mountain. It is SlowAlp’s will to include and develop all themes linked to the mountain, in the perspective of getting back to this environment and to the rhythms of human life in it. All ideas and events born from the slow culture are part the project development. However, SlowAlp also wants to be a stronghold of quiet, and propose an alternative way to live the mountain, helping people to build their own life on different values, far from the ones of the current society. Among these, due to the strong and inescapable changes of the economics culture in our society, the need to create a strong network between people and institutions, a common concept in alpine society, where people used to get together for corvées, in order to make a useful service for the entire community. Getting back to the rhythms of life and of your own body, relating to the surrounding environment and listening to your own deep desires; all this enables you to think about the meaning of happiness.
Happiness can be found in the teachings of the mountain and of its culture, making it possible to own and manage the important things in life. SlowAlp’s offer has a strong formative value, helping people to think about how the mountain can improve their own future and, more generally, the future of society. Among the positive effects for the tourism in Valpelline is the possibility to transform it into a point of reference for other valleys and to complete their touristic offer. In this case, the prerequisite is the actual ability of regional tourist bodies to address to Valpelline those people looking for a different tourist approach, in relation to the slow events shown in the menu SlowAlp initiatives in the home page. In the end, as Slowalp is strongly consistent with the objectives and protocols of The Alps Convention, the Permanent Secretary showed his interest on the project and, as it happened already for SlowAlp, Cairn Valpelline – Aosta Valley, will underline the aspects of the Convention which are put into concrete effect in SlowAlp.